now known as "applied science." But there can be no doubt of the service which Bacon rendered in making such a classification at all. To Bacon modern science is largely indebted for the sense of solidarity that obtains among all special investigators. He was, in a measure at least, responsible for the organization of the Royal Society in London, and of similar societies on the continent. He inspired the collective scientific movement of the Encyclopædists; and, directly or indirectly, the systematization of science made by Comte, Spencer and others. The present idea, then, that the several sciences are the members of one body, and that those who serve them are serving in one army to achieve the conquest of the unknown, is an idea to which Bacon testified clearly and effectually.
IV. The Baconian Method.—But Bacon did not merely point out the promised land and exhort men to discovery; he organized a plan of campaign. There is an opinion to the effect that while Bacon was enlightened in his general ideas, he was benighted in his particular ideas. This opinion is entirely unjust. Bacon does make many of the mistakes current in his time; and he deliberately makes many loose statements in the hope that they may prove suggestive and stimulating. Furthermore, he necessarily uses terms, such as "form," which, because they were borrowed from Greek and medieval thought, suggest to our minds something pre-scientific and obsolete. But this very term, as actually employed by Bacon, is the closest approxmiation in his time to the modern conception of cause, as employed in such sciences as molecular physics and chemistry. Furthermore, and be it said to his great and enduring credit, he was the great systematizer and popularizer of experimental method. The incompleteness of the Baconian method is the incompleteness of the experimental method. Although he did not by any means ignore it, it is true that Bacon did not adequately realize the importance of the quantitative or mathematical formulation of scientific laws. But this fact in no wise affects the correctness of his statement of the experimental method. The Baconian plan of research, avoiding technicalities, may be said to contain four important ideas, all of which have been approved and employed in subsequent scientific procedure.
His first and fundamental idea is that of observation. Bacon never wearies of reminding us that the mind must be brought into direct contact with things. In the study of nature, we may see, he believes, by the "ray direct." To avoid verbalism, dogmatism or ambiguity, it is necessary that the mind should be open to the facts, and that it should follow their leading. We can only conquer nature by first obeying her." But Bacon understood the fruitlessness of desultory observation. For purposes of explanation all facts are not equally significant.
