viii BACON 



nature, one must come as a little child ; must rid one's mind of 

 all prepossessions or prejudices which serve to distort the 

 truth. It is in this latter connection that Bacon sets forth his 

 famous doctrine of the four classes of " idols," or fallacies to 

 which the mind is especially subject in its attempts to reach 

 truth. He then proceeds to analyze and illustrate the methods 

 of inductive research much more completely than had ever been 

 done before his time. We cannot here discuss the merits and 

 defects of that analysis, but merely remark that it is not too 

 much to say that Bacon did for inductive logic what Aristotle 

 did for the theory of the syllogism. 



It is, of course, incorrect to say, as has sometimes been said, 

 that Bacon invented the inductive method of reasoning. Men 

 have always reasoned from particular instances to general laws. 

 But to admit this is not to lessen in any way the significance of 

 the " Novum Organum," as Macaulay assumes, in his brilliant 

 but exceedingly inaccurate and misleading essay on Bacon. 

 For we must distinguish between using induction more or less 

 unconsciously and thoughtlessly, and employing it with full 

 consciousness of the various steps involved, and under the 

 proper conditions. What Bacon endeavored to do was to an- 

 alyze the inductive procedure, and to show what conditions 

 must be fulfilled in order that truth may be reached in this way. 

 He thus brought the mind to a consciousness of its own meth- 

 ods, and provided it with a sure instrument for reaching certain 

 conclusions. 



But Bacon's services in impressing upon mankind a new 

 ideal of culture, and in arousing them to the practical im- 

 portance of extending their knowledge of nature, are perhaps 

 even more important than his logical theories. What Bacon 

 was to science from this point of view, is well expressed by 

 the following quotation from Dean Church's book on Bacon, in 

 the " English Men of Letters " series : " The world has 

 agreed to date from Bacon the systematic reform of natural 

 philosophy, the beginning of an intelligent attempt, which has 

 been crowned with such signal success, to place the investiga- 

 tion of nature on a solid foundation. ... It was some- 

 thing, indeed, to have conceived, as clearly as he conceived it, 

 the large and comprehensive idea of what natural knowledge 

 must be, and must rest upon, even if he were not able to 

 realize his idea, and were mistaken in his practical methods of 



