LIBER QUINTUS. 623 



rimenta designent. Priorem harum Experientiam Literatam 1 

 nominabimus, posteriorem vero Interpretationem Natura;, sive 

 Novum Organum. Prior quidem (ut alibi attigimus-) vix pro 

 Arte habenda est aut parte Philosophise, sed pro Sagacitate 

 quadam ; unde etiam earn Venationem Panis (hoc nomen ex 

 fubula mutuati) quandoque appellamus. Attamen quemadmo- 

 dum possit quis in via sua triplici modo progredi; aut cum 

 palpat ipse in tenebris ; aut cum alterius manu ducatur, ipse pa- 

 rum videns ; aut denique cum vestigia lumine adhibito regat: 

 similiter cum quis experimenta omnigena absque ulla serie aut 

 methodo tentet, ea demum mera est palpatio ; cum vero nonnulla 

 utatur in experimentando directione et ordine, perinde est ac si [ 

 manu ducatur : atque hoc illud est quod per Experientiam < 

 Literatam intelligimus. Nam Lumen ipsum, quod tertium fuit, ' 

 ab Interpr eta done Naturae, sive Novo Organo, petendum est. 



Literata Experientia, sive Venatio Panis, modos experi- 

 mentandi tractat. Earn (cum desiderari posuerimus, neque res 



1 With reference to the question how far Bacon thought it possible for observa- 

 tion to be carried on apart from theory (see General Preface, p. 61.), it is, I 

 think, important to remark that this notion of an Experientia Literata, as an in- 

 termediate step between simple experimentation absque ulld serie aut methodo and 

 the Interpretation of Nature, was not an after-thought, but formed part of his origi- 

 nal design in the earliest shape in which it is known to us. " This part of Invention 

 (he says in the Advancement of Learning') concerning the Invention of Sciences, I 

 purpose (if God give me leave) hereafter to propound : having digested it into two 

 parts : whereof the one I term Experientia literata, and the other Interpretatio natures; 

 the former being but a degree or rudiment of the latter." Now if he meant by " Experi- 

 entia literata " the same thing which he describes here, or anything like it, which I 

 see no reason to doubt he must have seen even then the impossibility of making a 

 collection of facts sufficient for the purposes of Interpretation without the help of some 

 principle of arrangement, some "series et methodus," some " sagacitas " in seeking 

 and selecting ; which necessarily implied some amount of theory. Such theory was 

 indeed to be provisional only, and subject at all times to revision. It was not to be 

 allowed as an axiom. But it does not appear that he would have put any other re- 

 striction upon the exercise of human sagacity in this way. The process might have 

 been carried therefore to an indefinite length, and the further the better. And though 

 it may be true that no amount of diligence and sagacity could ever have made a 

 collection of facts complete enough to lead to the discovery of Forms by the method 

 of the Novum Organum, it seems impossible to fix a point beyond which, through 

 successive reductions of particular phenomena and groups of phenomena under laws more 

 and more general, further progress could not have been made towards the highest 

 law which includes them all. And such progress men have in fact been making ever 

 since Bacon's time ; the whole of our experimental philosophy being what he, I think, 

 would have described as Experientia literata, and allowed as legitimate and successful 

 so far as it goes. Whether, if he could see the results which it has produced 

 during the last two hundred years, he would still believe in the possibility of arriving 

 ultimately at what he would have called "the Interpretation of Nature" may be doubted ; 

 but that if this " hunt of Pan " were conducted as skilfully and assiduously by the 

 whole body of inquirers through the entire field of nature as it has been by particular 

 inquirers in particular fields, we should be able to approach much nearer to such a 

 consummation than anybody now imagines this I cannot doubt that he would still 

 believe. J. S. 



8 See Nov. Org. i. 100. 



