84 PREFACE TO 



artificial process as the way in which the mind would naturally 

 work if the obstacles whereby it is hindered in the pursuit of 

 truth were once set aside. 1 So that his precepts are, he says, 

 not of absolute necessity: " necessitatem ei (arti interpretationis 

 scilicet) ac si absque e& nil agi possit, aut etiam perfectionem 

 non attribuimus," an admission not altogether in the spirit of 

 the earlier writings in which the art of interpretation is spoken 

 of as a secret of too much value to be lightly revealed. 2 



If it be asked why Bacon determined on propounding his 

 method by means of an example, the answer is to be sought for 

 in the last paragraphs of the Cogitata et Visa. He seems to 

 have thought that it would thus obtain a favourable reception, 

 because its value would be to a certain extent made manifest 

 by the example itself. Likewise he hoped in this way to avoid 

 all occasion of dispute and controversy, and thought that an 

 example would be enough to make his meaning understood by 

 all who were capable of understanding it. " Fere enim se in ea 

 esse opinione, nempe (quod quispiam dixit) prudentibus hasc 

 satis fore, imprudentibus autem ne plura quidem." 



His expectations have not been fulfilled, for very few of those 

 who have spoken of Bacon have understood his method, or have 

 even attempted to explain its distinguishing characteristics, 

 namely the certainty of its results, and its power of reducing 

 all men to one common level. 



Another reason for the course which he followed may not 

 improbably have been that he was more or less conscious that 

 he could not demonstrate the validity, or at least the practica- 

 bility, of that which he proposed. The fundamental principle 

 in virtue of which alone a method of exclusions can necessarily 

 lead to a positive result, namely that the subject matter to 

 which it is applied consists of a finite number of elements, each 

 of which the mind can recognise and distinguish from the rest, 



O d? + 



1 Nov. Org. i. 130. " Est enim Interpretatio verum et naturale opus mentis, demptis 

 iis quae obstant." But compare the following passage in Valerius Terminus, c. 22. 

 '* that it is true that interpretation is the very natural and direct intention, action, 

 and progression of the understanding, delivered from impediments. And that all 

 anticipation is but a reflexion or declination by accident." So that if we may infer 

 from the passage in the Novum Organum that his confidence had abated, we must 

 suppose that when he wrote the Valerius Terminus it had not risen to its height. But 

 for my own part I doubt whether his opinion on this point ever changed. J. S. 



* Not, I think, as a secret of too much value to be revealed, but as an argument' too 

 abstruse to be made popular. See Note B. at the end, where I have endeavoured to 

 bring together all the evidence upon which the presumption in the text is founded, 

 and to show that it proves either too much or too little. / S. 



