Upon the obstacles from want of time, more imaginary than real, if time is not wasted in frivolous pursuits, in sensuality or in sleep, in misapplication of times of recreation, or in idle curiosity, the Novum Organum contains but one casual, consolatory observation : "We judge also that mankind may conceive some hopes from our example, which we offer, not by way of ostentation, but because it may be useful." The obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge from want of means he through life deeply felt, and he never omitted an opportunity earnestly to express his hope that it would be diminished or destroyed by such a collection of natural history as would show the world, not as man has made it, not as it exists only in imagination, but as it really exists, as God has made it. Anxious to lay the true foundation of philosophy, he, in the Novum Organum, availed himself of the power with which he was intrusted, to induce the king to form such a collection of natural history as he had measured out in his mind, and such as really ought to be procured; "a great and royal work, requiring the purse of a prince and the assistance of a people." He, therefore, in the dedication, and in his presentation letter, urged the king to imitate Solomon, by procuring the compilation and completion of such a natural and experimental history as should be serviceable for raising the superstructure of philosophy: that, at length, after so many ages, philosophy and the sciences may no longer be unsettled and speculative, but fixed on the solid foundation of a varied and well-considered experience: and in his reply to the king's acknowledgment of the receipt of the Novum Organum, he repeats his hope that the king will aid him in employing the community in collecting a natural and experimental history, as "basis totius negotii; for who can tell, now this mine of truth is opened, how the veins go, and what lieth higher, and what lieth lower ?" Such were the hopes in which he indulged. So difficult is it to love and be wise. The king complimented him upon his work, saying, that, "like the peace of God, it passeth all understanding;" but of a collection of natural history, "ne verbum quidem." Annexed to this doctrine of idols, there are some inquiries into the signs of false philosophy; the causes of the errors in philosophy; and the grounds of hope that knowledge must be progresse; hopes which he had beautifully stated in the conclusion of his Advancement of Learning. After having thus cleared the way by considering the modes by which we are warped from the truth by which, formed to adore the true God, we fall down and worship an idol: after having admonished us, that, in the conduct of the understanding, a false step may be fatal, that a cripple in the right will beat a racer in the wrong way, erring in proportion to his fleetness, he expresses his astonishment that no mortal should have taken care to open and prepare a way for the human understanding, from sense and a well-conducted experience, but that all things should be left either to the darkness of tradition, the giddy agitation and whirlwind of argument, or else to the uncertain waves of accident, or a vague and uninformed experience. To open this way, to discover how our reason shall be guided, that it may be right, that it be not a blind guide, but direct us to the place where the star appears, and point us to the very place where the babe lieth, is the great object of this inquiry. As our opinions are formed by impressions made upon our senses, by confidence in the communications of others, and by our own meditations, man, in the infancy of his reason, is unavoidably in error: for, although our senses never deceive us, the communications made by others, and our own speculations must, according to the ignorance of our teachers, and the liveliness of our own imaginations, teem with error. Bacon saw the evil, and he saw the remedy: he saw and taught his contemporaries and future ages, that reasoning is nothing worth, except as it is founded on facts. In his Sylva Sylvarum, he thus speaks: "The philosophy of Pythagoras, which was full of superstition, did first plant a monstrous imagination, which afterwards was, by the school of Plato and others, watered and nourished. It was, that the world was one entire, perfect, living creature; that the ebbing and flowing of the sea was the respiration of the world, drawing in water as breath, and putting it forth again. They went on and inferred, that if the world were a living creature, it had a soul and spirit. This foundation being laid, they might build upon it what they would; for in a living creature, though never so great, as, for example, in a great whale, the sense, and the effects of any one part of the body, instantly make a transcursion throughout the whole body: so that by this they did insinuate that no distance of place, nor want or indisposition of matter, could hinder magical operation; but that, for example, we might here in Europe have sense and feeling of that which was done in China. With these vast and bottomless follies, men have been in part entertained. But we that hold firm to the works of God, and to the sense, which is God's lamp, Lucerna Dei Spiraculum Hominis, will inquire, with all sobriety and severity, whether there is to be found, in the footsteps of nature, any such transmission and influx of immateriate virtues." In this state of darkness was society involved, when Bacon formed his Art of Invention, which consists in collecting all bodies that have any affinity with the nature sought; and in a systematic examination of the bodies collected. To discover facts is, therefore, his first object; but, as natural and experimental history is so co- | Another use, therefore, of this table is to discover pious and diffusive as to confound and distract the nature sought by observing its qualities which the understanding, unless digested in proper order, tables are formed and so digested, that the understanding may commodiously work upon them. are absent in the analogous nature, "like the images of Cassius and Brutus, in the funeral of Junia;" of which, not being represented as many others were, Tacitus saith, "Eo ipso præfulgebant quod non visebantur." Such is the object of his first or affirmative table, which, he warns his reader, is not to raise the edi-Lightning. Acids, fice, but merely to collect the materials, and which is, therefore, to be made without any hasty indulgence of speculation, although the mind may, in proportion to its ingenuity, accidentally, from an inspection of affirmative instances, arrive at a just conclusion. By observing this table, it appears that the blood of all animals is not hot. This table, therefore, prevents hasty generalization: "As if Samuel should have rested in those sons of Jesse which were brought before him in the house, and should not have sought David, who was absent in the field." By observing the table, it also appears, that boiling water is hot; ice is cold :-living bodies are hot; dead bodies are cold;-but in boiling water and in living bodies there is motion of parts in ice and dead bodies they are fixed. VOL. I.—(11) In the same body. In Animals. Animal heat varies from minute perceptibility to about the heat of the hottest day. It is always endurable. It is increased by food, venery, exercise, fever, &c. In some fevers the heat is constant, in others intermit. tent, &c. Heat varies in different parts of the same body. Animals differ in heat, &c. Flame. 1. The lambent flame, related by historians to have ap peared on the heads of children, gently playing about the hair. 2. The coruscations seen in a clear night on a sweating horse. 3. Of the glow-worm. 4. Of the ignis fatuus. 5. Of spirits of wine. 6. Of vegetables, straw, dry leaves. 7. Of boiling metals. 18. Of blast furnaces. By observing in this table the cause of the different quantities of the nature sought, some approximation may be made to the nature itself. Thus, vegetables, or common water, do not exhibit heat to the touch, but masticated pepper or boiling water are hot. Flame is hotter than the human body: boiling water than warm. Is there any difference except in the motion of the parts? TABLE IV. Or of Exclusions, is of a more complicated nature. Bacon assumes that the quality of any nature can be ascertained by its being always present when the sought nature is present: is always absent when the sought nature is absent: increases always with its increase, and decreases with its decrease. Upon this principle his table of exclusion is formed, by excluding, 1st, Such particular natures as are not found in any instances where the given nature is present; or, 2d, Such as are found in any instances where that nature is absent; and, 3d, Such as are found to increase in any instance when the given nature decreases; or, 4th, To decrease when that nature increases. Thus, Natures not always present with the sought nature. Which may be absent when the sought na Nature varying according to Which may in- Which may de- Which may be present when the sought nature is present ture is absent. parts, &c. Light, Fluidity. Quiescence of Light. &c. Iron may be greater heat 1. EXCLUSION OF IRRELEVANTS. Solitary Instances.—If the inquiry be into the nature of colour: a rainbow and a piece of glass in a stable window, differ in every thing except in the prismatic colours; they are therefore solitary in resemblance. The different parts of the same piece of marble, the different parts of a leaf of a variegated tulip, agree in every thing, save the colour; they are, therefore, solitary in difference. By thus contracting the limits of the inquiry, may it not possibly be inferred, that colour depends upon refraction of the rays of light? Nature in motion.-Observe nature in her processes. If any man desired to consider and examine the contrivances and industry of a certain artificer, he would not be content to view only the rude materials of the workman, and then immediately the finished work, but covet to be present whilst the artist prosecutes his labour, and exercises his skill. And the like course should be The object of this exclusion is to make a perfect resolution and separation of nature, not by fire, but by the mind, which is, as it were, the divine fire: that, after this rejection and exclusion is duly made, the affirmative, solid, true, and well-taken in the works of nature. defined form will remain as the result of the operation, whilst the volatile opinions go off in fume. TABLE V. Travelling Instances.-In inquiring into any nature, observe its progress in approaching to or receding from existence. Let the inquiry be into the nature of whiteness. Take a piece of The fifth table of Results, termed the first clear glass and a vessel of clear water, pound the vintage or dawn of doctrine, consists of a collec-glass into fine dust and agitate the water, the tion of such natures as always accompany the pulverised glass and the surface of the water will sought nature, increase with its increase, and de-appear white; and this whiteness will have tracrease with its decrease. It appears, that, in all instances, the nature of heat is motion of parts;-flame is perpetually in motion;-hot or boiling liquors are in continual agitation; the sharpness and intensity of heat is increased by motion, as in bellows and blasts; -existing fire and heat are extinguished by strong compression, which checks and puts a stop to all motion;-all bodies are destroyed, or at least remarkably altered, by heat; and, when heat wholly escapes from the body, it rests from its labours; and hence it appears, that heat is motion, and nothing else. velled from non-existence into existence. Again, take a vessel full of any liquor with froth at the top, or take snow, let the froth subside and the snow melt; the whiteness will disappear, and will have travelled from existence to non-existence. Journeying Instances.-In inquiring into any nature, observe its motions gradually continued or contracted. An inquirer into the vegetation of plants should have an eye from the first sowing of the seed, and examine it almost every day, by taking or plucking up a seed after it had remained for one, two, or three days in the ground; to obHaving collected and winnowed, by the various serve with diligence when, and in what manner tables, the different facts presented to the senses, the seed begins to swell, grow plump, and he proposed to examine them by nine different be filled or become turgid, as it were, with processes: of which he has investigated only the spirit; next, how it bursts the skin, and strikes first, or PREROGATIVE INSTANCES, those instances its fibres with some tendency upwards, unless the by which the nature sought is most easily disco-earth be very stubborn; how it shoots its fibres vered. They may be thus exhibited: in part, to constitute roots downwards; in part. to form stems upwards, and sometimes creeping sideways, if it there find the earth more open. pervious, and yielding, with many particulars of the same kind. And the like should be done as to eggs during their hatching, where the whole process of vivification and organization might be easily viewed; and what becomes of the yolk, what of the white, &c. The same is also to be attempted in inanimate bodies; and this we have endeavoured after, by observing the ways wherein liquors open themselves by fire; for water it was carried; the scent of the bloodhound; the opens one way, wine another, verjuice another, and milk, oil, &c., with a still greater difference. Constituent Instances.-In inquiring into any nature, separate complex into simple natures. Let the nature sought be memory, or the means of exciting and helping the memory: the constiuent instances may be thus exhibited: loadstone amongst stones; that species of flowers which do not die when plucked from the stalk, but continue their colours and forms unaltered through the winter. So with grammarians the letter G is held singular for the easiness of its composition with consonants, sometimes with double and sometimes with triple ones, which is a property of no other letter. So the number 9 amongst figures possesses the peculiar property, that the sum of the digits of all its multiples is 9.1 Instances of Divorce.-Observe the separation of such natures as are generally united. Light and heat are generally united; but in a cold moonlight Such are specimens of his mode of excluding night there is light without heat, and in hot water irrelevant natures. 2. OBSERVING THE NATURE WHERE MOST CONSPICUOUS, OR INSTANCES OF EXTREMES. there is heat without light. The action of one body upon another is in general affected by the medium through which it acts; thus sound varies with the state of the atmosphere, and through a thick wall is scarcely perceptible. The magnetic attraction seems to be an instance of divorce, as it acts indifferently through all mediums. Patent and Latent Instances. In inquiring into any nature, observe where the nature, in its usual state, appears most conspicuous, and where it Deviating Instances. Observe nature when apappears in its weakest and most imperfect state. The loadstone is a glaring instance of attrac-parently deviating from her accustomed course; tion. The thermometer is a glaring instance of as in all cases of monsters, prodigious births, the expansive nature of heat. Flame exhibits its expansive nature to the sense, but it is momentary and vanishes. Again, let the inquiry be into the nature of solidity, the contrary of which is fluidity. Froth, snow, bubbles, whether of soap and water, blown by children, or those which may be seen occasionally on the surface of a fluid or on the side of a vessel, or the looking-glasses made of spittle by children in a loop of a single hair or a rush, where we see a consistent pellicule of water, like infant ice, exhibit solidity in its most feeble states. Maxima and Minima. In inquiring into any nature, observe it in its extremes, or its maxima &c. He who knows the ways of nature will the easier observe her deviations; and he who knows her deviations, will more exactly describe her ways. For the business in this matter is no more than by quick scent to trace out the footways of nature in her wilful wanderings, that so afterward you may be able at your pleasure to lead or force her to the same place and posture again. As a man's disposition is never well known till he be crossed, nor did Proteus ever change shapes till he was straitened and held fast. Such are specimens of his modes of viewing nature where most conspicuous. RENT CAUSES. and minima. Gold in weight; iron in hardness; 3. FIXING THE REAL, BETWEEN DIFFERENt appathe whale in bulk of animal bodies; the hound in scent; the explosion of gunpowder in sudden expansion, are instances of maxima. The minute worms in the skin is an instance of minimum in animal bulk. Frontier Instances. Observe those species of bodies which seem composed of two species; as moss, which is something betwixt putrefaction and a plant; flying fishes, which are a species betwixt birds and fish; bats, which are betwixt birds and quadrupeds; the beast so like ourselves, the ape; the biformed births of animals; the mixtures of different species, &c. Singular Instances. In inquiring into any nature, observe those instances which, in regular course, are solitary amidst their own natures. Quicksilver amongst metals; the power of the carrier pigeon to return to the place from whence Crucial Instances. When, in inquiring into any particular nature, the mind is in æquilibrio between two causes, observe if there is not some instance which marks the cause of the sought nature. Let the nature sought be gravity. Heavy bodies, having a tendency to the earth, must fall er mero motu, from their own construction, or be attracted by the earth. Let two equal bodies fall through equal spaces at different distances from the earth, and if they fall through these equal spaces in unequal times, the descent is influenced by the attraction of the earth. 1 Thus 9x2=18 and 8+1=9. 9X11=99 and 9+9=18 and 1+8=-9 4. RESEMBLANCES AND DIFFERENCES. Observe resemblances between apparent differences. -Are not gums of trees and gems produced in the same manner, both of them being only exudations and percolations of juices: gums being the transuded juices of trees, and gems of stones; whence the clearness and transparency of them both are produced by means of a curious and exquisite percolation?-Are not the hairs of beasts and the feathers of birds produced in the same manner, by the percolation of juices? and are not the colours of feathers more beautiful and vivid, because the juices are more subtilely strained through the substance of the quill in birds than through the skins of beasts? Do not the celestial bodies move in their orbits by the same laws which govern the motions of the bodies terrestrial. Such are specimens, mere specimens, of this most valuable of all his works, and by him most highly valued. It is written in a plain, unadorned style, in aphorisms, invariably stated by him to be the proper style for philosophy, which, conscious of its own power, ought to go forth "naked and unarmed;" but, from the want of symmetry and ornament, from its abstruseness, from the novelty of its terms, and from the imperfect state in which it was published, it has, although the most valuable, hitherto been too much neglected: but it will not so continue. The time has arrived, or is fast approaching, when the pleasures of intellectual pursuit will have so deeply pervaded society, that they will, to a considerable extent, form the pleasures of our youth; and the lamentation in the Advancement of Learning will be diminished or pass away: "Nevertheless, I do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of Esop's cock, that preferred the barley-corn before the gem; or of Midas, that, being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the muses, and Pan, god of the flocks, 6 beauty and love, against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina, occidat matrem modo imperet,' that preferred empire with any condition, never so detestable; or of Ulysses, qui vetulam prætulit immortalitati,' being a figure of those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency; or of a number of the like popular judgments. For these things must continue as they have been: but so will that also continue, whereupon learning hath ever relied, and which faileth not: justificata est sapientia a filiis suis.'" Copies of the work were sent to the king, the University of Cambridge, Sir Henry Wotton, and Sir Edward Coke. From the conformity between a speculum and the eye, the structure of the ear and of the cavernous places that yield an echo, it is easy to form and collect this axiom,-that the organs of the senses, and the bodies that procure reflections to the senses, are of a like nature. And, again, the un-judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for derstanding being thus admonished, easily rises to a still higher and more noble axiom; viz., that there is no difference between the consents and sympathies of bodies endowed with sense, and those of inanimate bodies without sense, only that in the former an animal spirit is added to the body so disposed, but is wanting to the Jatter; whence, as many conformities as there are among inanimate bodies, so many senses there might be in animals, provided there were organs or perforations in the animal body, for the animal spirit to act upon the parts rightly disposed, as upon a proper instrument. And, conversely, as many senses as there are in animals, so many motions there may be in bodies inanimate, where the animal spirit is wanting; though there must, of necessity, be many more motions in inanimate bodies than there are senses in animate bodies, because of the small number of the organs of sense. Real differences in apparent resemblances.-Do any two beings differ more from each other than two human beings? Men's curiosity and diligence have been hitherto principally employed in observing the variety of things, and explaining the precise differences of animals, vegetables, and fossils, the greatest part of which variety and differences are rather the sport of nature, than matters of any considerable and solid use to the sciences. Such things, indeed, serve for delight, and sometimes contribute to practice, but afford little or no true information, or thorough insight into nature; human industry, therefore, must be bent upon inquiring into, and observing the similitudes and analogies of things, as well in their wholes as in their parts; for these are what anite nature, and begin to build up the sciences. The tranquil pursuits of philosophy he was now, (1620,) for a time, obliged to quit, to allay, if possible, the political storm in which the state was involved, and which he vainly thought that he had the power to calm. It is scarcely possible for any chancellor to have been placed in a situa tion of greater difficulty. He knew the work that must be done, and the nature of his materials. The king, who was utterly dependent upon the people, was every day resorting to expedients which widened the breach between them: despotic without dignity, and profuse without magnificence, meanly grasping, and idly scattering neither winning their love, nor commanding their reverence, he seemed in all things the reverse of his illustrious predecessor, except in what could be well spared, the arbitrary spirit common to them both. While the people were harassed and pillaged by the wretches to whom the king had delegated his authority, he reaped only part of the spoil, but all the odium. The chancellor had repeatedly assured the king |