Thomas Fowler

“ What impels me to do an action when I know it to be right, is partly obedience to the will of God, hope of His rewards, and fear of His punishments; partly a natural appetite, impressed on me as on all other objects, to seek good, and to seek the greater good rather than the lesser. That two or more inconsistent modes of thought are implied in these answers I am aware. But Bacon and his generation had not yet reached that stage in the history of ethical speculation when thought on these subjects was clear and consistent. Bacon still regarded ethics as the 'handmaid' of theology. ”

“ In order to set men free to study facts, it was necessary to deliver them from the pernicious subjection to authority to which they had so long been enslaved. Here and there throughout the middle ages a solitary thinker like Roger Bacon may have asserted his independence, and, during the century preceding Bacon's time, the murmurs of discontent had been becomingloud and frequent, but it required a voice, like that of the author of the 'Great Instauration,' effectually to awaken men from their slumber. ”

“ As his contribution to science rests on his perception of the greatness and variety of nature, so his contribution to politics rests upon his perception of the complexity of human society. In politics, as well as in science, he found himself too much in advance of the times to secure a following. Some men would have grown misanthropical, and would have abandoned the thankless task in despair. It was alike the strength and weakness of Bacon's character which prevented him from doing this. ”

“ In the history of literature Bacon is mainly known as the writer of the 'Essays.' But in the history of science, logic, and philosophy, the chief interest which attaches to his name is that of a reformer of scientific method.
The method which obtained almost exclusively in scientific inquiries during the middle ages is what is commonly called the deductive method. It is absurd to speak as if Bacon were the inventor of induction. ”

“ Bacon, who had taken no inconsiderable part as a commissioner in drawing up the plan, now became its warmest champion in the House of Commons. The view taken in the house was the narrow one which was natural to occur to average human intelligence. The commercial rivalry of the poor and hardy Scots was a danger which every one could foresee. To look forward imaginatively to the value of the union required either the mind of a Bacon, or one which, like that of James, was brought to consider the question from a special point of view. ”

“ Bacon might well be called the British Socrates. Even had his individual precepts been utterly worthless, many men must have owed their first impulse to the study of nature, or to independent investigation in general, to the terse and burning words, issuing, as it were, from the lips of an irresistible commander, with which he urges them to the work. ”

“ An action is right which is good — good, that is to say, either for ourselves or for others, and, wherever the good of self or of a smaller aggregate conflicts with that of a larger one, that action will, generally speaking, be right which promotes the good of the community or of the larger community of the two. I know an action to be right, partly by my reason exercised on its eftects and on the effects of actions similar to it, partly also by that 'inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a relic of man's ancient purity, and partly too by the words of God's Revelation. ”

“ Bacon distinctly sees that the real object of science is the ascertainment of causes or facts of causation. 'It is rightly laid down that to know truly, is to know by means of causes.' He reads a valuable lesson also, when he insists on the unity of nature and the unity of science. Nature, he conceives, is a continuous and orderly whole, admitting of no breaks and no exceptions. ”

“ It was Bacon's misfortime that he never passed through the stage of admiration which goes far to develope a complete character. The author of the 'Letter of Advice' knew himself to be capable of giving lessons in politics to Burghley, and, if he did not expect intellectual assistance from Essex, he failed to perceive that the young nobleman's generosity of temper was at least as admirable as any power of brain could possibly be. In his intercourse with men there was none of that intellectual give-and-take which is the foundation of the highest friendship. ”

“ Once more that yearning for political and scientific achievement which in Bacon was so inseparably mingled with desire for the good things of life, blinded his eyes to the instability of the foundations on which he was building, and he threw himself with unabated ardour into the service of Villiers, advised him as to his conduct, and assisted him in the management of his estate. His own hope of advancement was now greater than it had ever been before. When, in January 1016, lord chancellor Ellesmere was apparently dying. Bacon proposed himself as his successor. ”

“ The title of founder or father of experimental philosophy, so often ascribed to him by his admirers and so often criticised by his detractors, expresses the nature of Bacon's influence in a rough and perhaps a somewhat exaggerated as well as a somewhat inadequate form, but one which is in the main true.
Bacon called men as with the voice of a herald to lay themselves alongside of nature, to study her ways, and imitate her processes. ”

“ For the individual sciences are like the branches of a tree which meet in one trunk, and each science must suffer if rudely dissevered from the rest.
The principal objections which have been directed against Bacon's method of scientific investigation are: (1) that Bacon's theory of induction is too mechanical; (2) that he unduly neglects the proper use of hypothesis; (3) that his conception of a gradual ascent from axioms of the lowest to axioms of the highest degree of generality does not correspond with the actual conduct of scientific investigation. ”

“ But far the most important and perhaps, at first sight, the least excusable of his scientific errors was his persistent rejection of the Copernican theory. It seems indeed strange that one who laid claim to be the great reformer of science should have steadily refused to admit the greatest reform in scientific conceptions which had been proposed for many generations, and which had already been before the world for eighty years. ”

“ Inductive logic, that is, the systematic analysis and arrangement of inductive evidence, as distinct from the natural induction which all men practise, is almost as much the creation of Bacon as deductive logic is that of Aristotle. It must, however, be acknowledged that the one left far more to be added and remodelled by his successors than did the other.
'Man,' says Bacon, 'is the servant and interpreter of nature.' But as the bare hand is of little use in mechanical work, so the unassisted intellect can effect little in the work of reasoning. ”

“ The judges, as he expressed himself in one of his essays, should be 'lions, but yet lions under the throne, being circumspect that they do not check or oppose any points of sovereignty,' Coke's attempt to erect the bench into the position of an arbiter of the constitution was rightly distasteful to him, and so far as Bacon succeeded in thwarting this his success was well deserved. It was the last real success that he was ever to have. The greater the political power acquired by the king, the sooner would the question be asked whether, he deserved to exercise it. ”

“ To use his own homely simile, he rang the bell which called the other wits together He insisted, both by example and precept, on the importance of experiment as well as observation. Nature, like a witness, when put to the torture, would reveal her secrets. In both these ways Bacon recalled men to the study of facts, and though, in the first instance, he had mainly in view the facts of external nature, the influence of his teaching soon extended itself, as he undoubtedly purposed that it should do, to the facts of mind, conduct, and society. ”

“ A quarrel was impending between James and Coke, on which all Bacon's sympathies were on the side of James. As Bacon had pleaded for a larger statesmanship than Salisbury's, he now pleaded for statesmanship itself as against the technical legality of Coke. His fundamental strength lay in recognition of the truth that political wisdom is greater than legality. His fundamental weakness lay in his failure to discover that political wisdom was not to be expected from James, and that consequently it would be necessary to reconstruct the whole framework of the state. ”

“ Bacon was too great a man to play other than a second-rate part in the age in which he lived, and he struggled hard, to the detriment of his own character as well as of his fame, to avoid the inevitable consequence. ”

“ Yet, however we may explain Bacon's choice, his future life was sad enough, and that none the less because he was not himself conscious of wrong. The support of power for the sake of doing good became a support of power from which no good was to be hoped. The lower part of Bacon's nature was perhaps not more active than it had been before ”

“ The boy already longed not merely to do something for the defence of protestantism against its enemies, and something for the improvement of the government of his native country, both which thoughts were likely to arise in the mind of Elizabeth's 'young lord keeper,' as she playfully called him, but also to achieve a task which was peculiarly his own, to create a new system of philosophy to replace that of Aristotle, not merely for the satisfaction of the cravings of his own speculative reason, but for the practical benefit of humanity at large. ”

“ English and Irish were to be treated as one nation. In Ireland, however, the difficulty of maintaining order, in consequence of the inability of the English exchequer to maintain there a large military force, always stared the reformer in the face, and Bacon, like the rest of his contemporaries, had no better remedy to propose than the introduction of English settlers as a standing garrison, a plan which, when actually adopted, spoiled the whole scheme of reform. ”

“ A government without the protection of an armed force was liable to be overturned by a man who, like Essex, was the darling of the military class which was at that time forming, without that tie of discipline which, in standing armies, counterbalances the tendency of military men to use force rather than persuasion. ”

“ In the concluding aphorisms of the first book, Bacon answers, by anticipation, the important question whether he intends his new method to be confined to the problems of natural philosophy, or contemplates its application to the other sciences as well, 'logic, ethics, and politics.' To this question he replies (Aph. 127) : 'Now I certainly mean what I have said to be understood of them all; and as the common logic, which governs by the syllogism, extends not only to natural but to all sciences; so does mine also, which proceeds by induction, embrace everything. ”

“ In the summer of 1497, during the troubles connected with Perkin Warbeck, James IV of Scotland invaded England, and besieged the castle of Norham. ‘But,’ says Bacon, ‘Foxe, bishop of Duresme, a wise man, and one that could see through the present to the future, doubting as much before, had caused his castle of Norham to be strongly fortified, and furnished with all kind of munition, and had manned it likewise with a very great number of tall soldiers more than for the proportion of the castle, reckoning rather upon a sharp assault than a long siege. ”

“ Every man deeply engaged in politics sighs at times for a freer life; and if Bacon had a special reason for longing for it, in order that he might develope his scientific work, it is unnecessary to suppose that, except in moments of weariness, he regarded his political work as unworthy of himself.
In the session of 1605-6, which followed the Gunpowder plot. Bacon was once more immersed in civil causes, contributing to the discussion on purveyance and supply, the chief business of the session, that of providing new laws against the catholics being in other hands. ”

“ There is to be no more bargaining between king and subjects. The king is to show his determination to lead in the right direction, and to be content to wait till his subjects are prepared to follow. He is not to press for supply, but to wait till the commons are sufficiently impressed with his devotion to the nation to offer him all that he needs. 'In bargains,' wrote Bacon in some notes which he drew up for the king's speech to the new parliament, 'the manner is for either part chiefly to take care of the other. ”

“ Much is doubtless to be said in extenuation, but an impartial judge can only advise a plea of 'guilty' on many of the counts in the indictment. He makes no mention, for instance, of Harvey's great discovery of the circulation of the blood, though Harvey had already begun to teach it in 1619, the year before the appearance of the 'Novum Organum.' Bacon appears never to have heard of the astronomical discoveries recently made by means of Kepler's calculations, and he was singularly ignorant of many facts both in the theory and the history of mathematics and mechanics. ”

“ It is no wonder that from time to time he felt regret that he had not devoted himself to a scientific life, especially as he was himself unaware that he had not the qualifications of a scientific observer. ”

“ I die if I do not somewhat towards your fortune; you shall not deny to accept a piece of land which I will bestow upon you.' Bacon told the earl that it was not well for him to turn his estate into obligations, for he would find bad debtors. As Essex continued to press the gift, Bacon accepted it. 'My lord,' he said, 'I see I must be your homager and hold land of your gift; but do you know the manner of doing homage in law? Always it is with; a saving of his faith to the king and his other lords ”

“ Appended to the first edition of the 'Essays' was a fragment entitled 'Of the Colours of Good and Evil.' Like the ' Essays' and the 'De Sapientia Veterum,' it is full of shrewd remarks suggested by Bacon's knowledge of life and observations of human nature. These 'Colours of Good and Evil,' with additions, were afterwards embodied in the sixth book of the 'De Augmentis.' Bacon there states that, when a young man, he had collected many other 'colours' or 'popular signs' of good and evil, but, as he had not yet found time to illustrate or examine them, he refrained from setting them out. ”

“ Instead of this hasty and haphazard kind of induction, it is the peculiar merit of Bacon to have conceived, and to a certain extent to have elaborated, a regular and scientific method, proceeding by way of elimination, and thus carrying up an effect to its cause or following a cause into its effects by a chain of demonstrative reasoning. This method he calls the method of exclusions or rejections, and it is in this device that he conceives the peculiar value and originality of his logical system to consist. ”

“ Bacon was thus destined to the profession of the law. Few youths of his age, however, are content to look forward to a life of merely professional success; and in Bacon's case, partly by reason of his own mental qualities, and partly by reason of the influence of the exciting events of the great national struggle in the heart of which he lived, the visions of youth were peculiarly far-reaching. ”