CHAPTER V. 

 EMPIRICISM. 



The success which the special sciences were experiencing in this 

 period just described was due to the method which they employed. 

 Had theology and philosophy been able to use that same method, 

 they, too, would have been truly sciences and would have enjoyed 

 greater confidence and more rapid development. As it was, theology 

 held itself sternly aloof from the innovations introduced round 

 about it, and philosophy, as a theory of the universe, only gradually 

 realized the value of the new method. Perhaps no man, in the earlier 

 period, appreciated so well the nature and character of the scientific 

 development as did Thomas Hobbes. He was able to read with 

 splendid accuracy the signs of the times and discerned remarkably 

 well the dual aspect of the method which science was employing. 

 Before outlining what Hobbes conceived this to be, mention, per- 

 haps, should be made of the personage, who often in history has 

 overshadowed the much more brilliant Hobbes, viz., the Lord 

 Chancellor, Francis Bacon. 



Credit is frequently given, even yet, to Bacon for having under- 

 stood clearly the fallacy of the old procedure, which dominated the 

 Mediaeval Ages, and for having enunciated the new method. But 

 such a conclusion is incorrect. Bacon did emphasize the necessity 

 for a different method, but he gave voice to the sentiments which 

 were already prevalent, and when he attempted to give a logical 

 account of the new method actually in use, for that was his work 

 and not the inauguration of this new method, he failed most sig- 

 nally. It was not the method which Bacon called Induction by 

 which science was advancing and by which it was still to advance. 

 This has been for long recognized. But there was another serious 

 error which Bacon made, and one for which he cannot be so severely 

 blamed. It was a natural outcome of the history of the Mediaeval 

 Ages, and Hobbes, too, made the same mistake, a mistake which, 

 indeed, is only too prevalent at this very day. Bacon completely 

 separated the domains of faith and of reason. If the two conflict, 



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