August 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNO^A^LEDGE ♦ 



217 



^ ILLUSTRATED^MAGAZINE 

 fcENCE,lITERATURE,& ARl 



LONDON: AUGUST 1, 1887. 



BACON AND SCIENCE. ' 



HERE is a widely prevalent belief that Lord 

 Bacon was the originator of inductive 

 philosophy — the father of the modern 

 scientific method. This idea is so generally 

 entertained that to many it will appear like 

 paradox to question it. We have been told 

 again and again that it was as followers of 

 the Baconian method that Pascal and Tor- 

 ricelli determined the properties of air ; that Newton was a 

 disciple of Bacon and was directed by Baconian hints when 

 he quarried from out the unknown the grand law of gravi- 

 tation. " Nurtured in Bacon's school," says a modern 

 enthusiast, " Boyle transformed hydrostatics from a loose 

 assemblage of facts into a deductive science ; Watt con- 

 structed the steam-engine, which has annihilated .space and 

 economised the labour of millions, and Franklin rivalled the 

 glories of the ancient Prometheus in snatching the electric 

 fire from heaven." 



In reality, the influence of Bacon in starting and guiding 

 modern science is little better than a myth. The common 

 opinion on the subject justifies the old saying, Communis 

 ojnnio conDiuinis error. No competent student of science 

 acquainted with Bacon's own promises and anticipations 

 regarding his method has ever adopted this error, though 

 many students of science unacquainted with Bacon's works 

 imagine that he really originated the modern scientific 

 method, and all such students of Bacon's works as have 

 little knowledge of the history of scientific research imagine 

 that the inductive method he devised and described is the 

 method which Pascal and Newton, Watt, the Herschels, 

 Laplace, Darwin, and other great leaders of science have 

 followed in efiecting the discoveries which have made their 

 names illustrious. 



The world owes much to Bacon, but not this. Science 

 owes not a little to him, but assuredly not her method. It 

 can be more certainly shown that Bacon was not the 

 inventor of the modern scientific method than that he was 

 not the author of the plays attributed to Shakespeare — and 

 this, in my opinion, is ^aying a great deal. But if this 

 should by some be thought little, then I will use another 

 comparison, and say it is as certain that Bacon was not the 

 father of modern science as that he — Ptolemaist as he was 

 to the backbone — was not the discoverer of the C'opernican 

 theory, the earliest product of the modem method, published 

 to the world seventeen yeais before he was born. 



The most striking proof of the essential difference 

 between Bacon's method and the actual method of scientific 

 inquiries is the marked failiu-e of Bacon's anticipations in 

 regard to what his method was to effect. Said Bacon (I 

 follow Spedding's translation) : " The course I propose for 

 the discovery of sciences is such as leaves but little to the 



acutenfss and strength of wits, but places all wits and 

 understandings nearly on a level. . . . For my way of dis- 

 covering sciences . . . performs everything by the surest 

 rules and demonstrations." Assuredly no such levelling of 

 wits as Bacon anticipated has come about. No small mind 

 has accomplished great results by his method — nor, indeed, 

 any great mind either. 



What, then, was Bacon's method 1 and what is the 

 method of all true science, alike in ancient and modern 

 times 1 



There can be no knowledge of nature without observation 

 and experiment. Tbat is the golden rule of science. Had 

 Bacon discovered and announced that, fir.st of all men, to 

 the world, he would assuredly have deserved all that has 

 been said of him by men either not knowing wh.tt he 

 actually said or how science has actually advanced. Had 

 that been the blow by which Aristotelian methods were 

 attacked. Bacon would have justly been regarded as one who 

 had overthrown a false system of philosophy by a well- 

 delivered and most effective stroke. But it was not Bacon 

 who enunciated first, still less was it he who first recognised, 

 that golden rule. Recognised we know not how far back — 

 but Chaldean astronomers and Egyptian architects must 

 have had a very clear idea of it ages before the law was 

 enunciated — it was insisted upon by no other than Aristotle 

 himself. 



Because Bacon attacked Aristotle's system of logic, and 

 did much to diminish its influence in the schools, it is com- 

 monly understood that be overthrew the Aristotelian philo- 

 sophy. As a matter of fact. Bacon was in error even in 

 attacking the Aristotelian syllogistic system. In so doing 

 he forgot the sound principle, Ahusus non toUit usum (or, 

 as Guy Mannering translates it, " the abuse of anything doth 

 not abrogate the lawful use thereof"). He fell into special 

 error in denying the use of the .syllogistic method in regard 

 to the system of inductive inquiry which he advocated, the 

 effective application of which must depend absolutely on the 

 very method Bacon scorned. 



There can be no knowledge of nature until all possible 

 ohseriritiong and experiments have been made — this, though 

 not in so many words, was the principle on which Bacon 

 insisted. You must have all your facts, and sort them all 

 into their several compartments. Then will the true theory 

 be recognised by its agreement with all known facts, either 

 absolutely or relatively, according to its different details and 

 the bearing of the various orders of facts upon them. As 

 certainly as the true key to a complicated lock may be 

 recognised by its correspondence with all the wards when 

 you have taken the lock to pieces and carefully compared 

 each part, ward by ward, with the key, so surely can the 

 one only true explanation of the facts relating to a subject of 

 inquiry be recognised when you have examined the subject 

 in all possible lights and compared all the facts, detail by 

 detail, with the theory. All possible positive instances and 

 negative instances, as well as instances partially positive and 

 partially negative in greater or less degree (no less than 

 twentj^seven classes or instances wei-e indicated by Bacon), 

 must be collected and compared with each admissible 

 theory ; then will the true theory show itself — to the level- 

 ling of unequal wits, as well as to the advancement of 

 scientific learning. 



The method has not only not brought unequal wits to a 

 common level, it has never enabled any man, let his genius 

 be ever so great, to arrive at truth. Not one discovery in 

 science has ever bfen made by this method. No student of 

 science familiar with the complication of details existing in 

 all the problems of nature, even in some which appear the 

 simplest, would ever have thought of suggesting the in- 

 ductive method as recommended by Bacon. No student of 



