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in Bacon's day, from the telescopic or microscopic character of the mind).*

The Spectres of the Market are characterised as the most troublesome of all. They, as before stated, are those which have insinuated themselves into the understanding from the associations of words and names. They are of two kinds; either names of things which do not exist, or names confused and ill-constructed, and inconsiderately and unfairly (inaequaliter) abstracted from things. The false notions produced by the latter are those that cling most obstinately to men's minds.

Lastly, the Spectres of the Theatre are discussed in the seven aphorisms from the 61st to the 67th inclusive. These are neither native to the mind, nor do they make their way into it by any secret insinuation; but are introduced by and received openly from the fabulous representations of philosophical theories, and from the perverse established rules of reasoning. At the same time, Bacon repeats, he has no quarrel with the authors of these theories about anything more than the method of inquiry. Let the ancients, he exclaims, keep their honours. But, as they say, a lame man in the right path will outstrip the swiftest runner out of it; for it is clear that, the stronger and swifter the latter is, the farther will he be carried from his object. His own method Bacon describes as leaving little to acuteness and strength of wit, but, on the contrary, as almost reducing all wits and intellects to the same level. This strange notion appears to have been deeply implanted in his mind. The Spectres of the Theatre, he proceeds to observe, are very numerous, and may and perhaps will be some time much more so. The comparatively small number of new philosophical theories that the modern world had produced he attributes to men's minds having

* The Latin is "ex objectis largis et minutis;" but the indefiniteness of the expression is sufficiently explained by the 57th aphorism, of which it is a brief summary. Mr. Wood's translation-" the extent or narrowness of the subject "--can scarcely be considered to convey Bacon's meaning. Mr. Glassford translates, " from largeness or minuteness of the objects pre

sented."

been for many ages so much occupied with religious and theological questions. False philosophy he divides into three kinds; sophistical, empirical, and superstitious. The following is the 63rd Aphorism, as translated by Mr. Wood:

Aristotle affords the most eminent instance of the first, for he corrupted natural philosophy by logic:-thus he formed the world of categories, assigned to the human soul, the noblest of substances, a genus determined by words of secondary operation, treated of density and rarity (by which bodies occupy a greater or lesser space) by the frigid distinctions of action and power, asserted that there was a peculiar and proper motion in all bodies, and that, if they shared in any other motion, it was owing to an external moving cause, and improved innumerable arbitrary distinctions upon the nature of things; being everywhere more anxious as to definitions in teaching, and the accuracy of the wording of his propositions, than the internal truth of things. And this is best shown by a comparison of his philosophy with the others of greatest repute among the Greeks. For the similar parts of Anaxagoras, the atoms of Leucippus and Democritus, the heaven and earth of Parmenides, the discord and concord of Empedocles, the resolution of bodies into the common nature of fire and their condensation according to Heraclitus, exhibit some sprinkling of natural philosophy, the nature of things, and experiment, whilst Aristotle's Physics are mere logical terms; and he remodelled the same subject in his Metaphysics under a more imposing title, and more as a realist than a nominalist. Nor is much stress to be laid on his frequent recourse to experiment in his books on Animals, his Problems, and other treatises; for he had already decided, without having properly consulted experience as the basis of his decisions and axioms, and, after having so decided, he drags experiment along as a captive constrained to accommodate herself to his decisions: so that he is even more to be blamed than his modern followers (of the scholastic school) who have deserted her altogether.

The Empiric philosophy produces conclusions more deformed and monstrous than the Sophistic, or that which proceeds merely upon reasoning (rationale genus); because it is founded not upon the light of vulgar notions (which, although weak and superficial, yet is in a sort universal and pertinent to many things), but upon the narrowness and obscurity of a few experiments. The philosophy of the alchemists and that of Gilbert are again referred to as instances. There is considerable danger, Bacon thinks, that even his own method, of which experiment makes so important a part, may in after times give birth to much erroneous philosophizing of the empiric kind.

This is Mr. Wood's translation of the 65th Aphorism :

The corruption of philosophy by the mixing of it up with superstition and theology is of a much wider extent, and is most injurious to it both as a whole and in parts. For the human understanding is no less exposed to the impressions of fancy, than to those of vulgar notions. The disputatious and sophistic school entraps the understanding, whilst the fanciful, bombastic, and, as it were, poetical school, rather flatters it. [Mr. Wood has omitted the next sentence: -For there is inherent in man a certain ambition of the intellect, not less strong than that of the will; especially in high and soaring wits.] There is a clear example of this among the Greeks, especially in Pythagoras, where, however, the superstition is coarse and overcharged; but it is more dangerous and refined in Plato and his school. This evil is found also in some branches of other systems of philosophy, where it introduces abstracted forms, final and first causes, omitting frequently the intermediate, and the like. Against it we must use the greatest caution; for the apotheosis of error is the greatest evil of all, and where folly is worshipped, it is, as it were, a plague-spot upon the understanding. 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. 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 things divine and human. It is therefore most wise soberly to render unto faith the things that are faith's.

So much for the erroneous manner of viewing nature; the vicious or wrong matter of contemplation is next discussed. It is observed that the human understanding, infected by the inspection of the processes of the mechanical arts, in which bodies are so much changed by compositions and separations, is apt to assume that something access to that kingdom of man which has its foundation in the sciences, than there is to the kingdom of heaven, which it is not given to any one to enter who does not come in the character of a little child.

Having now gone through the more systematic portion of the book, a more cursory survey of the remainder will be sufficient. Instead of an analysis of every aphorism, we shall notice only those that are most important or remarkable.

From the Spectres of the mind the author proceeds to those depraved methods of reasoning by which, he says, they are supported and defended. There are four steps, he observes, and as many vices or errors, in the processes universally employed in deducing axioms and conclusions from things and perceptions. First, the impressions of the sense itself are deceptive. Secondly, notions or conceptions are erroneously abstracted from the impressions of the senses. Thirdly, the induction is erroneous, which determines the principles of science by means of a simple enumeration of facts, without the application of the proper exclusions and solutions, or separations, of nature. Lastly, the method of discovering and proving, according to which the more general principles are first established, and then intermediate axioms are applied to them and tested, is the mother of errors and the bane of all the sciences. Then come the following aphorisms, being the 70th, 71st, 72nd, and 73rd; which we give as they are translated by Mr. Glassford :

70. But by far the best demonstration is experience, or trial, provided it cleave to the very experiment. For if it be translated to others which are accounted like, unless that translation be justly and orderly made, it is a deceitful thing. Now, the manner of experimenting which men use at present is blind and stupid. Accordingly, while they stray and wander by no certain road, but take counsel only from occurrence or justle of things, they are carried about to many things, but advance little; and sometimes they are elate, sometimes are perplexed or confounded, and always find what to seek farther. And so it nearly happens, that, in experiment, men assay with levity, and, as it were in play; just a little changing experiment al ready known; and if the affair misgives, distasting and forsaking the endeavour. Or if, with more gravity, and fixedness, they gird themselves to experiment, they yet bestow their labour in digging and turning over some one experience; as Gilbert in the loadstone, the chemists in gold. Now, this men do with a purpose and direction not less unskilled than futile. For no one explores the nature of anything with felicity in the thing itself; but the inquiry is to be enlarged to what are more general.

Or, even if they do endeavour at a sort of science and positive doctrine from experiments; yet, almost in every case, through an over-hasty and untimely eagerness, they turn aside to practical application tion of them ; not only because of the profit and fruit of such practice, but that in some new work they may as it were, snatch a pledge to themselves, that they are about to be not unprofitably employed in the rest; and also recommend themselves to others, for the purchase of a better repute concerning those things in which they are engaged. Thus it happens that in the manner of Atalanta, they go aside to take up the golden apple; but in doing so interrupt the course, and let victory slip from their hands. Whereas, in the true lists of experiment, and carrying it forward to production of new works, the divine wisdom and order are, by all means, to be taken for the pattern. But, on the first day of the creation, God created light only, and to that work allotted the entire day; nor created on that day any materiate work. In like manner, and by experiments in every kind, the discovery of causes and true axioms is first to be elicited; and experiments of light, not of fruit, to be inquired. Axioms again, when rightly deduced and constituted, supply uses of practice, not straitened or scantily, but in numbers; and draw after them bands and troops of works. But of the ways of experimenting, which not less than the ways of judging, are blocked up and intercluded, we shall discourse afterwards; having, for the present, only spoken of the common experience as of a faulty demonstration. And now the order of things requires, that we subjoin somewhat concerning those signs (or indications) which we mentioned a little before, (of distemperature in the received philosophies and contemplations) and concerning the causes of a thing at first view so surprising and incredible. For the cognizance of signs prepares assent, but the explication of causes removes wonder. Which two conduce

* The Latin is "aliis se venditent." Mr. Glassford has strangely, "insinuate themselves with others."

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