THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS. 45 



or of disappearing; as when glass, being pounded, becomes white. 

 Of these it is said that they not only accelerate and strengthen 

 the Exclusiva, but also confine within narrow limits the Affirm- 

 ative, or Form itself, by showing that it is something which is 

 given or taken away by the observed change. A little far- | 

 ther on Bacon notices the danger in these cases of confounding 

 the efficient cause with the Form, and concludes by saying ; 

 " But this is easily remedied by a legitimately performed Ex- \ 

 clusiva." 



Other remarks to the same effect might be made with re- 

 ference to other classes of instances; but these are probably 

 sufficient. 



I shall now endeavour to give an account of Bacon's views 

 on some questions of philosophy, which are not immediately 

 connected with the reforms he proposed to introduce. 



(13.) It has sometimes, I believe, been supposed that Bacon 

 had adopted the atomic theory of Democritus. This however 

 is by no means true ; but certainly he often speaks much more 

 favourably of the systems of the earlier physicists, and espe- 

 cially of that of Democritus, than of the philosophy of Plato and 

 Aristotle. In doing this he may, perhaps, have been more or 

 less influenced by a wish to find in antiquity something with 

 which the doctrines he condemned might be contrasted. But 

 setting this aside, it is certain that these systems were more ^ 

 akin to his own views than the doctrine of the schools of which 

 Socrates may be called the founder. The problems which they 

 proposed were essentially physical, given certain material 

 first principles, to determine the origin and causes of all pheno- 

 mena. They were concerned, for the most part, with that 

 which is accessible to the senses, or which would be so if the 

 senses were sufficiently acute. In this they altogether agree 

 with Bacon, who, though he often speaks of the , errors and 

 shortcomings of the senses, yet had never been led to consider 

 the question which stands at the entrance of metaphysical phi- 

 losophy, namely whether the subjective character of sensation 

 does not necessarily lead to scepticism, if no higher grounds of 1 

 truth can be discovered. The scepticism of Protagoras, and 

 Plato's refutation of it, seemed to him to be both but idle sub- 

 tleties. Plato, Aristotle, and their followers, were in his 

 opinion but a better kind of sophists. What Dionysius said to 



