262 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
Bacon while yet a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, conceived a thorough 
dislike to the Aristotelian Philosophy, "They learn nothing," he says, " at the 
universities, but to believe. They are like a becalmed ship, they never move 
but by the wind of other men's breath, and have no oars of their own to steer 
withal." In the Novum Organum, he affirms that, "The studies of men in such 
places are confined and pinned down to certain authors, from which if a man 
happen to differ, he is presently represented as a disturber and innovator." In a 
tract, in after years, on the defects of the universities, he proposes that a college 
be established for the discovery of new truth, to mix, as he characteristically 
remarks, "like a living spring with the stagnant waters." The methods of the 
preceding ages, in a word, had failed, the masters had groped amidst the dark- 
ness for a true philosophy and a true science in vain. It was reserved for Bacon, 
during the quietude of the Elizabethan Age, to rise like a sun and shine upon 
the world. 
The method of the Baconian Philosophy was nearly antagonistic to that of 
the preceding age. The fruitlessness of the ancient logic, as an instrument of 
discovery, had been fully proved. "We must first," says Bacon, "collect a 
natural history, that is, whatever be the subject we intend to investigate, we must 
first set down all the facts we can gain upon it. Having done this, we must 
classify these into tables, so that we may expunge those which are useless to the 
question, and gather the ' vintage ' of those which are really significant. These 
significant facts are further to be scrutinized with respect to their relative value 
and import, and to be illustrated whenever it is practicable, by actual experiment. 
This being done, the law of the phenomena will at once begin to appear. Thus, 
our knowledge must rise from the bare facts, as they are presented to our senses, 
upwards, through different degrees of generalization, till the most general form 
thereof is ascertained, and the top stone of the pyramid laid upon it." 
The spirit of the Baconian Philosophy is to determine what is truth. 
Pilate propounded this same question of olden time, but Bacon says he did not 
wait for an answer. Under the Inductive Philosophy nature is patiently interro- 
gated for her facts and laws. Time with resistless sweep may measure ages 
before a problem yields solution. And should it defy all processes of the world 
nature will beget and rear up some gifted mind to carry forward those processes 
to a higher plane. And truth is to be found at all hazards. She is to be bought 
at any price. The universe is to be laid under contribution. The secrets of 
nature are be forced. New appliances are to be constructed and new methods 
of analysis invented until we stand, if possible, face to face with the Absolute. 
The Inductive Philosophy also possesses a liberal spirit. Its faith is as large 
as the Universe of God. All things are believed possible until proved impossible. 
All things are believed true until proved untrue. Nothing is rejected that stands 
the touchstone of observation, comparison and experiment. The chaff-heaps of 
antiquity are to be winnowed and every grain tried. 
It also possesses a fearless spirit. All truth must be consistent with itself. 
No two facts of the universe can contradict each other. No two laws of the 
