The Novum Organum is the next subject of consideration. It thus opens:
His despair of the possibility of completing his important work, of which his Novum Organum was only a portion, appears at the very entrance of the volume, which, instead of being confined to the Novum Organum, exhibits an outline, and only an outline, of the whole of his intended labours.
After his dedication to the king, he, according to his wonted mode, clears the way by a review of the state of learning, which, he says, is neither prosperous nor advanced, but, being barren in effects, fruitful in questions, slow and languid in its improvement, exhibiting in its generality the counterfeit of perfection, ill filled up in its details, popular in its choice, suspected by its very promoters, and therefore countenanced with artifices, it is necessary that an entirely different way from any known by our predecessors must be opened to the human understanding, and different helps be obtained, in order that the mind may exercise its jurisdiction over the nature of things.
The intended work is then separated into six parts:
1. Divisions of the Sciences.
2. Novum Organum; or, Precepts for the Interpretation of Nature.
3. Phenomena of the Universe; or, Natural and Experimental History on which to found Philosophy.
4. Scale of the Understanding.
5. Precursors or Anticipations of the Second Philosophy.
6. Sound Philosophy, or Active Science.
And with respect to each of these parts he explains his intentions.
As to the first, or The Division of the Sciences, he, in 1605, had exhibited an outline in the Advancement of Learning, and lived nearly to complete it in the year 1623. In this treatise he describes the cultivated parts of the intellectual world and the deserts; not to measure out regions, as augurs for divination, but. as generals to invade for conquest.
The Novum Organum is a treatise upon the conduct of the understanding in the systematic discovery of truth, or the art of invention by a New Organ: as, in inquiring into any nature, the hydrophobia, for instance, or the attraction of the magnet, the Novum Organum explains a mode of proceeding by which its nature and laws may with certainty be found.
It having been Bacon's favourite doctrine, that important truths are often best discovered in small and familiar instances, as the nature of a commonwealth, in a family and the simple conjugations of society, man and wife, parents and children, master and servant, which are in every cottage; and as he had early taught that all truths, however divisible as lines and veins, are not separable as sections and separations, but partake of one common essence, which, like the drops of rain, fall separately into the river, mix themselves at once with the stream, and strengthen the general current, it may seem extraordinary that it should not have occurred to him that the mode to discover any truth might, possibly, be seen by the proceedings in a court of justice, where the immediate and dearest interests of men being concerned, and great intellect exerted, it is natural to suppose that the best mode of invention would be adopted.
In a well constituted court of justice the judge is without partiality. He hears the evidence on both sides, and the reasoning of the opposite advocates. He then forms his judgment. This is the mode adopted by Bacon in the Novum Organum for the discovery of all truths. He endeavours to make the philosopher in his study proceed as a judge in his court.
For this purpose his work is divisible into three parts: 1st. The removal of prejudice or the de-
- ↑ Vol. ix. p. 145, 147. Cum autem incertus esset, quando inæc alicui posthac in mentem ventura sint; eo potissimum usus argumento, quod neminem hactenus invenit, qui ad similes cogitationes animum applicuerit; decrevit prima quæque, quæ perficere licuit, in publicum edere. Neque hæc festinatio ambitiosa fuit, sed sollicita; ut si quid illi humanitus accideret, exstaret tamen designatio quædam, ac destinatio rei quam animo complexus est; utque exstaret simul signum aliquod honestæ suæ et propensæ in generis humani commoda voluntatis. Certe aliam quamcunque ambitionem inferiorem duxit re, quam præ manibus habuit. Aut enim hoc quod agitur nihil est; aut tantum, ut merito ipso contentum esse debeat, nec fructum extra quærere.
FRANCIS OF VERULAM
THOUGHT THUS.
Uncertain, however, whether these reflections would ever hereafter suggest themselves to another, and particularly having observed that he has never yet met with any person disposed to apply his mind to similar meditations, he determined to publish whatsoever he had first time to conclude. Nor is this the haste of ambition, but of his anxiety, that if the common lot of mankind should befall him, some sketch and determination of the matter his mind had embraced might be extant, as well as an earnest of his will being honourably bent upon promoting the advantage of mankind. He assuredly looked upon any other ambition as beneath the matter he had undertaken; for that which is here treated of is either nothing, or it is so great that he ought to be satisfied with its own worth and seek no other return.
but only because the like was never attempted before: an irrational, and, as it were, a passionate manner of experimenting; but yet the wonders of nature lie out of the high road and beaten paths, so as the very absurdity of an attempt may sometimes be prosperous.
Such is the nature of his tract entitled "Literate Experience."
