iS:S THE BACONIAN METHOD 52 1 



" That liis method is impracticable cannot, I think, be de- 

 nied, if we reflect, not only that it never has produced any 

 result, but also that the process by which scientific truths 

 have been established cannot be so presented as even to 

 appear to be in accordance with it." 



How early this conviction had forced itself upon him, I 

 cannot say ; but it was certainly not later than 185Q, when 

 the Origin of Species was constantly met with " Oh, but this 

 is contrary to the Baconian method." He had long felt 

 what he expresses most clearly in the " Progress of Science " 

 [Coll. Ess. i. 46-57) that Bacon's " majestic eloquence and 

 fervid vaticinations " which " drew the attention of all the 

 world to the ' new birth of Time ' " were yet, for all prac- 

 tical results on discovery, " a magnificent failure." The 

 desire for " fruits " has not been the great motive of the 

 discoverer ; nor has discovery waited upon collective re- 

 search. " Those who refuse to go beyond fact," he writes, 

 " rarely get as far as fact ; and any one who has studied the 

 history of science knows that almost every great step therein 

 has been made by the ' anticipation of nature,' that is, by 

 the invention of hypotheses, which, though verifiable, often 

 had very little foundation to start with; and, not unfre- 

 quently, in spite of a long career of usefulness, turned out 

 to be wholly erroneous in the long-run." 



Thus he had been led to a settled disbelief in Bacon's 

 scientific greatness, that reasoned " prejudice " against which 

 Spedding himself was moved to write twice in defence of 

 Bacon. In his first letter he criticised a passage in the 

 lecture touching this question. On the one hand, he re- 

 marks, " Bacon would probably have agreed with you as 

 to his pretensions as a scientific discoverer (he calls him- 

 self a bellman to call other wits together, or a trumpeter, 

 or a maker of bricks for others to build with)." On the 

 other hand, he asks, ought a passage from a fragment — the 

 Tcmporis partus masciiliis — unpublished in Bacon's lifetime, 

 to be treated as one of his representative opinions? 



In his second letter he adduces, on other grounds, his 

 own more favourable impression of Bacon's philosophical 

 influence. A peculiar interest of this letter lies in its testi- 



