94 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



5. 



Defect in 

 Bacon's 

 philosophy. 



Our age has in many ways inherited the spirit of 

 Bacon's philosophy ; but it would be a mistake to attrib- 

 ute its great scientific achievements to the exclusive 

 working of this spirit. Bacon was neither a retired and 

 patient nor an accurate thinker the desire to apply and 

 make his learning useful led him away from the " sapien- 

 tum templa serena " into the forum of life : in his own 

 experience, as well as in his writings, he anticipated many 

 of the dangers which beset modern culture the love of 

 premature application, and the haste for practical results 

 and achievements. Science, which in the hands of patient 

 and diligent observers 1 had just been rescued from the 

 sway of empty metaphysical and theological reasoning, 



the enormous part which mathe- 

 matics would play in the develop- 

 ment of science. In this respect 

 Descartes was a genius of much 

 greater originality his actual con- 

 tributions to scientific progress, as 

 well as those of Pascal, being far 

 beyond those of Bacon ; but they 

 both retained the metaphysical 

 habit of thought which has char- 

 acterised many, if not all, among 

 the greatest mathematicians. In 

 modern culture the popularisation 

 of novel views and ideas has become 

 so important a factor that writers 

 like Bacon and Voltaire, who com- 

 bine the scientific and literary taste, 

 are of the greatest importance in 

 the diffusion of new ideas, though 

 none of their works need be looked 

 upon as great repositories of re- 

 search and knowledge. Before Lie- 

 big wrote liis pamphlet, a very im- 

 partial and temperate estimate of 

 Bacon's philosophy and its relations 

 to actual science was published by 

 Robert Leslie Ellis in his introduc- 

 tion to the philosophical works of 

 Lord Bacon (London, 1857). As 



the literature of the subject is so 

 large, I cannot but recommend this 

 essay as containing one of the best 

 discussions of it. 



1 A very good and concise account 

 of the achievements of these con- 

 temporaries and forerunners of Ba- 

 conof Tycho (1546-1601), Kepler 

 (1571-1630), Galileo (1564-1642), 

 Gilbert (1540-1603), Harriot (1560- 

 1621), Napier (1550-1617), Harvey 

 (1578-1656) is given by John 

 Nichol in the second volume of his 

 ' Francis Bacon, his Life and Philo- 

 sophy ' (Edinb., 1889), pp. 86, 254. 

 In the same volume (p. 193) there 

 is also a useful summary of Bacon's 

 real claims to a place among physi- 

 cists,, of his ignorances (p. 196), and 

 of the reception which his works 

 met with in England and abroad 

 (p. 233 to end). Not quite so read- 

 able, but more complete, is the 

 little volume of Hans Heussler, 

 ' F. Bacon und seine geschichtliche 

 Stellung' (Breslau, 1889), with its 

 flood of references which exhaust 

 the subject. See especially p. 160, 

 &c., on Bacon's anticipations. 



