BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 265 
ualism which has rolled on for more than two hundred years, tinging science, 
.philosophy and religion and sweeping away the fairest fabrics of human mind. 
And herein, I believe, lies the chief defect of the Baconian Philosophy. 
With all its proud monuments of science and art, with all its civil and religious 
freedom, with all its philanthropy and benevolence, its diffused comfort and 
luxury, in a word, amidst all the glorious light of a new civilization which seems 
'to be spreading over the surface of the whole earth, grows this Upas tree of 
materialism whose leaves go forth to poison the nations. 
Hobbs, the immediate successor of Bacon, made sensation the only basis of 
knowledge, and reduced the whole process of scientific investigation to the doc- 
trine of bodies. Comte attempted to generalize the great law of human progress 
into three distinct stages — the theological, metaphysical, and positive. He at- 
tempted to solve all natural phenomena by material causes, as if he had attempted 
to climb up to heaven by a ladder whose top rested upon the summit of some 
■neighboring mountain. Ignoring the supernatural, he was left without God in 
the world. He devised a species of scientific religion in which humanity univer- 
^sal was worshipped in public, but woman, as possessing the best traits of human- 
ity, in private devotions ! Darwin attempts to break down the immutablity of 
species, by making the accidents of development greater than the law, and thus 
■opens the gate to the Development Theory which aims to derive man by devel- 
oping lower into higher forms of life. Assuming Spontaneous Generation and 
ithe Nebular Hypothesis, the unknown author of the Vestiges of Creation drew out 
-a world by the Development Theory and peopled it without a God. Thus flows 
in devious channels this stream of materialism, washing many lands with its turbid 
waters, and wrecking many barques freighted with the fairest hopes of life. 
We come now to consider, if it be not presumption, how the Baconian Phil- 
osophy may be re-adjusied, so that it shall produce the highest results for truth 
and the world. 
All lovers of truth, let me say in passing, must deplore the efforts of some 
men who endeavor to arrest scientific investigation when it seems to be danger- 
ous, or threatens a popular creed. All history shows that the progress of ideas 
cannot be prevented by persecution. Every department of science is full of 
workers who cannot be intimidated by fear, or kept back from their self-appointed 
tasks by hunger, thirst or privation. Fired by an enthusiasm for what they con- 
sider truth, approved in their acts by their own moral sense, nothing can stay 
ithe course of their investigations. Not only is opposition to scientific investiga- 
tion fruitless, but it does not become a philosopher to interfere in the working of 
problems which are to find solution in themselves. The problems of philosophy 
are to be conducted on philosophical principles, and the problems of science on 
■scientific principles. Problems in each department contain all the elements 
necessary for a perfect solution. All interference from without is unphilosophical 
and hazardous, and many prove disastrous. Neither should we impugn the 
motives of men of science, because they carry their processes to the last analysis, 
^ij a word, work out their problems pure, and leave their co-ordination to others. 
