The facts garden and the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike that is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the memory whole, as it finds it; but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore, from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never yet been made), much may be hoped." In the second book of the Novum Organum Bacon begins, though he does not complete, a more definite statement of his method. Briefly stated, his plan was, after ridding the mind of its prepossessions, to tabulate carefully lists of all the facts of nature. It seemed to him a comparatively easy task to make, through the coöperation of scientific men, a complete accumulation of all the facts of science. After these data were secured, the next step would be to discover the 'forms' of things, by which he means the underlying essence or law of each particular quality or simple nature. Such an abstraction could be achieved by a process of comparing the cases where the quality appears and where it does not appear, and of excluding the instances that fall under both heads until some 'form' is clearly present only when the quality is. Then, as a proof, another list may be drawn up where the quality appears in different degrees and where the 'form' should vary correspondingly. 'Salomon's House' and the Pansophic Course Bacon's idea of what may be accom plished by this new method is New Atlantis, shown in his where the members of 'Salomon's House' de vote them A description of what Bacon thinks may be expected when this scientific method is systematically carried out can be found in his fable of the New Atlantis. The inhabitants of this mythical island are described as having in the course of ages created a state in which ideal sanitary, economic, political, and social conditions obtained. The most important institution of this society is its 'Salomon's House,' an organization in which the members selves to devoted themselves to scientific research and invention, scientific and in their supposed investigations Bacon anticipates much that scientists and inventors have to-day only just begun to realize. He represents these Utopian scientists as making all sorts of physical, chemical, astronomical, medical, and engineering experiments and discoveries, including the artificial production of metals, the forcing of plants, grafting, and variation of species, the infusion of serums, vivisection, telescopes, microphones, telephones, flying-machines, submarine boats, steam-engines, and perpetual-motion machines. Bacon was not a teacher, and his treatment of educational problems appears in brief and scattered passages, and shows a failure to appreciate fully the importance to be attached to the education of the young.1 Yet his 1 See Advancement of Learning, Bk. II, Chap. I; Bk. VI, Chap. IV; Bk. VII, Chap. III; also his essays, Of Studies, Of Parents and Children, Of Custom and Education, etc. While he would largely turn over the Education similarly or should be the basis of ganized on Bacon properly rejected the contem porary a priori description of 'Salomon's House' would seem to imply an interest in promoting scientific research and higher education at least, and a belief in such an organization of education that society might gradually accumulate a knowledge of nature and impart it to all pupils at every stage. Perhaps this is attributing too much to the great English philosopher, but such certainly was the plan of Ratich and Comenius, who later on worked out the Baconian theory in education, and this dream of pansophia ('all-wisdom') formed part of the educational creed of the later realists in general. Moreover, we know from the second book of his Advancement of Learning that Bacon ardently desired a reformation of the organization, content, and methods of higher education, and that among his suggestions for advancement were a wider course of study, more complete equipment for scientific investigation, a closer coöperation among institutions of learning, and a forwarding of the 'unfinished sciences.' The Value of Bacon's Method In estimating the method of Bacon, it is difficult to be fair. The importance of his work has been as much exaggerated by some as it has been undervalued by others. education of the young to the Jesuits, he is pedagogically wise in his suggestions as to the promotion of particular ability, the strengthening of mental weaknesses, and the methods of moral education. See Sisson, Francis Bacon on Education (Education, November, 1908). ing to put all level in attaining truth, too much, men on a he undertook and made a most me chanical pro cedure. He reacted from the current view of Aristotle's reason- method, but, in attempting, and, taking his cue from the many scientific workers of his time, formulated a new method in opposition to what he mistook as the position of the great logician. He very properly rejected the contemporary method of attempting to establish a priori the first principles of a science, and then deduce from them by means of the syllogism all the propositions which that science could contain. But in endeavoring to create a method whereby any one could attain all the knowledge of which the human mind was capable, he undertook far too much. His effort to put all men on a level in reaching truth resulted in a most mechanical mode of procedure and neglected the part played by scientific imagination in the framing of hypotheses. Scientific method is not at present satisfied to hold, as Bacon did, that because all observed cases under certain conditions produce a particular effect, every other instance not yet observed will necessarily have the same property or effect. The modern procedure is rather that, when certain effects are observed, of which the cause or law is unknown, the scientist frames an hypothesis to account for them; then, by the process of deduction, tries this on the facts that he has collected; and if the hypothesis is verified, maintains that he has discovered the cause or law. Yet this is only a more explicit statement of what has always been implied in every process of reasoning. The method had certainly C been used by the later Greek philosophers, and it, as well as the syllogism, had even been formulated by Aristotle, although this part of his work was not known in Bacon's day. Bacon cannot, therefore, really be said to have invented a new method It is also evident that he failed to appreciate the work of Aristotle and the function of genius in scientific discovery. But he did largely put an end to the existing process of a priori reasoning, and he did call attention to the necessity of careful experimentation and induction. Probably no book ever made a greater revolution in modes of thinking or overthrew more prejudices than Bacon's Novum Organum. It represents a culmination in the reaction that had been growing up through the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the earlier realism. As far as education is concerned, Bacon, while not skilled or greatly interested in the work himself, influenced profoundly the writing and practice of many who were, and has done much to shape the spirit of modern education. His method was first applied directly to education by a German known as Ratich, and, in a more effective way, by Comenius, a Moravian. ་ 1 |