2 8 The Concept of Method 



psychological that we reach the logical, as the standards and the 

 norms are. from the point of view of human experience, geneti- 

 cally later in conscious experience, however implicitly they may 

 underlie every step in the development of that experience when 

 regarded suh specie aeternitatis. In the next place, the process 

 of the transmission of knowledge ought to be made as simple 

 as possible, not furbished up in antique terms, nor making use 

 of vague and high-sounding language which is enigmatical to all 

 but the initiated. Quite opposed to mysticism in thought and 

 expression, Bacon is one of the earliest to seek to make science 

 a popular possession, and to wish to enable whoever would to 

 enter into the scientific inheritance which forms part of his social 

 birthright. It follows that in dealing with any scientific subject, 

 the writer or teacher has to bear in mind the nature of his 

 audience, and must have due regard for the familiarity with, or 

 ignorance of, the subject-matter in question upon which he can 

 depend as a presupposition to his discussion. In the actual 

 process of exposition or teaching, one ought not to hide a few 

 axioms or principles under a bushel of illustrations, and thereby 

 give a false impression of method ; but one ought rather to pro- 

 ceed by the proof of assertions, remembering that illustrations 

 do not prove, and that the solution of minor questions should be 

 involved in the consideration of larger principles instead of being 

 considered as separate problems. In conclusion, it is to be re- 

 membered that in a sense the method of procedure differs in 

 different subjects according to the material involved. The 

 method of experience as a whole is the same, the process of 

 thought is unitary, whatever the subject under consideration; but 

 the organisation of the various materials must proceed in accord- 

 ance with the laws of their own constitution, just as the mind 

 must proceed in accordance with the method of its own nature. 

 Bacon here suggests the educational problem of the relation of 

 " general " and " special " method, which is responsible for so 

 much confusion in later pedagogical writing. We are reminded 

 again, however, of the distinction between the psychological and 

 the logical in the organisation of our experience, and of the 

 difference between a process as it exists objectively in the rela- 

 tion of material things, and the reinterpretation of that process 

 in terms of human experience through the method of human 



