20 ANT I CI PA TION AND INTERPRE TA TION OF NA TURE. 



Bacon {Novum Organum, Book I., Sec. 45), in 

 his Aphorisms, deplores the corruption of Philoso- 

 phy by the mixing up with it of superstition and 

 theology, saying that it is most injurious both as a 

 whole and in parts, and continues : — 



" Against it we must use the greatest caution. . . . Yet some 

 of the moderns have indulged this folly with such consummate 

 inconsiderateness that they have endeavoured to build a system of 

 Natural Philosophy on the First Chapter of Genesis, the Book of 

 Job, and other parts of Scripture ; seeking thus the dead amongst 

 the living" (the interests of the soul). "And this folly is the 

 more to be prevented and restrained, because not only fantastical 

 philosophy but heretical religion spring from the absurd mixture 

 of matters Divine and human. It is therefore most wise soberly 

 to render unto faith the things that belong to faith." In the Intro- 

 duction of The G?'eat Instaiwatioji, he says : " For man, being 

 a member and interpreter of Nature, acts and understands so far 

 as he has observed of the order, the works, and the mind of 

 Nature, and can proceed no further, for no power is able to loose 

 or break the chain of causes, nor is Nature to be conquered but 

 by submission." 



A hard preliminary battle had to be fought by 

 the philosophers for natural causation as against 

 supernatural interference in the governing of the 

 living world. Here lies the main debt of natural 

 science to Philosophy ; and to omit mention of the 

 great names of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 

 turies would leave a serious gap in these outlines. 

 The natural philosophers of this time were more 

 scientific than the professed scientists. They 

 reached below metaphysics into questions which 



