n BACON : METHOD 329 



the nature of things experience, bodily existence, 

 whereas the physics of Aristotle, for the most part, 

 sound of nothing but dialectical terms/' 1 



The false straining after simplicity of explanation, Method. 

 the tendency to seek for similarities rather than differ- 

 ences, to expect order on the surface rather than at the 

 root of things, is condemned as vigorously by Bruno as 

 by Bacon, although not placed in the forefront of the 

 theory of method, as it is by the latter writer. One 

 of the Idols of the Tribe was " the tendency to sup- 

 pose greater order and equality in things than is 

 actually to be found ; although in nature many things 

 are monodica (i.e. monadica, unique), and full of imparity, 

 yet the mind feigns parallels, correspondences, relations 

 which are not. Hence the erroneous idea, e.g. that ' in 

 the heavens all things move in perfect circles/ rejecting 

 utterly spiral lines and dracones (except for the name) : 

 hence the element of fire and its sphere were intro- 

 duced to constitute a quaternio with the other three that 

 were actually perceived by sense," etc. 2 These things 

 were condemned also, and for the same reason, by 

 Bruno, who, however, went further, and insisted on the 

 uniqueness of every individual existence in the universe. 

 Again Bacon retained (without, however, giving it a 

 place in his philosophy) the scholastic distinction between 

 divine or angelic, intuitive, knowledge, and the acquired 

 piecemeal knowledge of man. " God, the inditer and 

 worker of forms, and perhaps angels and (higher) intel- 

 ligences, know forms immediately by affirmation, and 

 from the beginning of their contemplation. But that 

 is certainly above men to whom it is conceded only to 

 advance in the beginning by negatives, to come to rest 

 in the last place only, in affirmatives, after exclusion of 



1 Nov. Org. i. 63 ; cf. also 71. lb. i. 45. 



