Francis Bacon 31 



plants is that that is most important to their thriving, 



so the culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a 

 forcible, though unseen, operation, as hardly any length of time 

 or contention of labour can countervail it afterwards." (Ad. 

 of L. Bk. 2.) 



To sum up : Bacon stands as one of the first of modern phil- 

 osophers to raise the problem of method to consciousness. He 

 vi^as not interested in the materials of knowledge so much as in 

 the process of experience itself and, when he does deal with 

 materials, he considers them only as means towards the develop- 

 ment and organisation of experience. He insists upon the unity 

 of the method or process of knowledge, and seeks throughout his 

 work to free himself from the apprehension of things ex analogia 

 hominis and to see the various aspects of experience ex analogia 

 universi, thus foreshadowing the monistic interpretation of the 

 world set forth by Spinoza. Bacon's insistence upon this epis- 

 temological unity is all the more significant because he stands as 

 one of the world's greatest empiricists. His empiricism, how- 

 ever, is in the cause of the discovery of the method of experience, 

 and hence is to be distinguished from the merely reactionary 

 empiricism that led to an uninspired and unintelligent realism 

 on the one hand, or to an emotional sensationalism on the other 

 hand. The unity of knowledge is to be found in its character 

 as a method of experience, and its validity in virtue of its unity 

 and reaHty. Finally, Bacon is significant for modern educational 

 theory for having conceived of the nature of children from the 

 organic point of view, as comparable to^ seeds and flowers, in 

 an age antedating the time even when the mind was regarded as 

 a " tabula rasa " for the handwriting of nature, or the soul as a 

 darkened room whose windows could be opened to the light of 

 heaven. 



From the point of view of the purpose of this present discus- 

 sion. Bacon is significant as having emphasised the method of 

 experience as based upon an empirical knowledge of the phe- 

 nomena of nature. He, therefore, paves the way for a considera- 

 tion of Descartes, who emphasises the rationalistic interpretation 

 of experience, and of Kant, who seeks in his critical philosophy 

 to relate the two elements of empiricism and rationalism into a 

 unitary process which will fitly represent both sides of the method 

 of experience. 



