generation, corruption, attraction, repulsion, element, matter, form, and others of that kind; all are fantastical and ill-defined." And in his attempt to exemplify his own system, he hesitates174 in accepting or rejecting the notions of elementary, celestial, rare, as belonging to fire, since, as he says, they are vague and ill-defined notions (notiones vagæ nec bene terminatæ). In that part of his work which appears to be completed, there is not, so far as I have noticed, any attempt to fix and define any notions thus complained of as loose and obscure. But yet such an undertaking appears to have formed part of his plan; and in the Abecedarium Naturæ175, which consists of the heads of various portions of his great scheme, marked by letters of the alphabet, we find the titles of a series of dissertations "On the Conditions of Being," which must have had for their object the elucidation of divers Notions essential to science, and which would have been contributions to the Explication of Conceptions, such as we have attempted in a former part of this work. Thus some of the subjects of these dissertations are;—Of Much and Little;—Of Durable and Transitory;—Of Natural and Monstrous;—Of Natural and Artificial. When the philosopher of induction came to discuss these, considered as conditions of existence, he could not do otherwise than develope, limit, methodize, and define the Ideas involved in these Notions, so as to make them consistent with themselves, and a fit basis of demonstrative reasoning. His task would have been of the same nature as ours has been, in that part of this work which treats of the Fundamental Ideas of the various classes of sciences.
13. Thus Bacon, in his speculative philosophy, took firmly hold of both the handles of science; and if he had completed his scheme, would probably have given due attention to Ideas, no less than to Facts, as an element of our knowledge; while in his view of the general method of ascending from facts to principles, he displayed a sagacity truly wonderful. But we cannot be surprised, that in attempting to exemplify the method which he recommended, he should have failed. For the method could be exemplified only by some important discovery in physical science; and great discoveries, even with the most perfect methods, do not come at command. Moreover, although the general structure of his scheme was correct, the precise import of some of its details could hardly be understood, till the actual progress of science had made men somewhat familiar with the kind of steps which it included.
(VI.) 14. Bacon's Example.—Accordingly, Bacon's Inquisition into the Nature of Heat, which is given in the Second Book of the Novum Organon as an example of the mode of interrogating Nature, cannot be looked upon otherwise than as a complete failure. This will be evident if we consider that, although the exact nature of heat is still an obscure and controverted matter, the science of Heat now consists of many important truths; and that to none of these truths is there any approximation in Bacon's essay. From his process he arrives at this, as the "forma or true definition" of heat;—"that it is an expansive, restrained motion, modified in certain ways, and exerted in the smaller particles of the body." But the steps by which the science of Heat really advanced were (as may be seen in the history176 of the subject) these;—The discovery of a measure of heat or temperature (the thermometer); the establishment of the laws of conduction and radiation; of the laws of specific heat, latent heat, and the like. Such steps have led to Ampère's hypothesis177, that heat consists in the vibrations of an imponderable fluid; and to Laplace's hypothesis, that temperature consists in the internal radiation of such a fluid. These hypotheses cannot yet be said to be even probable; but at least they are so modified as to include some of the preceding laws which are firmly established; whereas Bacon's hypothetical motion includes no laws of phenomena, explains no process, and is indeed itself an example of illicit generalization.
15. One main ground of Bacon's ill fortune in this undertaking appears to be, that he was not aware of an important maxim of inductive science, that we must first obtain the measure and ascertain the laws of phenomena, before we endeavour to discover their causes. The whole history of thermotics up to the present time has been occupied with the former step, and the task is not yet completed: it is no wonder, therefore, that Bacon failed entirely, when he so prematurely attempted the second. His sagacity had taught him that the progress of science must be gradual; but it had not led him to judge adequately how gradual it must be, nor of what different kinds of inquiries, taken in due order, it must needs consist, in order to obtain success.
Another mistake, which could not fail to render it unlikely that Bacon should really exemplify his precepts by any actual advance in science, was, that he did not justly appreciate the sagacity, the inventive genius, which all discovery requires. He conceived that he could supersede the necessity of such peculiar endowments. "Our method of discovery in science," he says178, "is of such a nature, that there is not much left to acuteness and strength of genius, but all degrees of genius and intellect are brought nearly to the same level." And he illustrates this by comparing his method to a pair of compasses, by means of which a person with no manual skill may draw a perfect circle. In the same spirit he speaks of proceeding by due rejections; and appears to imagine that when we have obtained a collection of facts, if we go on successively rejecting what is false, we shall at last find that we have, left in our hands, that scientific truth which we seek. I need not observe how far this view is removed from the real state of the case. The necessity of a conception which must be furnished by the mind in order to bind together the facts, could hardly have escaped the eye of Bacon, if he had cultivated more carefully the ideal side of his own philosophy. And any attempts which he could have made to construct such conceptions by mere rule and method, must have ended in convincing him that nothing but a peculiar inventive talent could supply that which was thus not contained in the facts, and yet was needed for the discovery.
(VII.) 16. His Failure.—Since Bacon, with all his acuteness, had not divined circumstances so important in the formation of science, it is not wonderful that his attempt to reduce this process to a Technical Form is of little value. In the first place, he says179, we must prepare a natural and experimental history, good and sufficient; in the next place, the instances thus collected are to be arranged in Tables in some orderly way; and then we must apply a legitimate and true induction. And in his example180, he first collects a great number of cases in which heat appears under various circumstances, which he calls "a Muster of Instances before the intellect," (comparentia instantiarum ad intellectum,) or a Table of the Presence of the thing sought. He then adds a Table of its Absence in proximate cases, containing instances where heat does not appear; then a Table of Degrees, in which it appears with greater or less intensity. He then adds181, that we must try to exclude several obvious suppositions, which he does by reference to some of the instances he has collected; and this step he calls the Exclusive, or the Rejection of Natures. He then observes, (and justly,) that whereas truth emerges more easily from error than from confusion, we may, after this preparation, give play to the intellect, (fiat permissio intellectus,) and make an attempt at induction, liable afterwards to be corrected; and by this step, which he terms his First Vindemiation, or Inchoate Induction, he is led to the proposition concerning heat, which we have stated above.
17. In all the details of his example he is unfortunate. By proposing to himself to examine at once into the nature of heat, instead of the laws of special classes of phenomena, he makes, as we have said, a fundamental mistake; which is the less surprising since he had before him so few examples of the right course in the previous history of science. But further, his collection of instances is very loosely brought together; for he includes in his list the hot taste of aromatic plants, the caustic effects of acids, and many other facts which cannot be ascribed to heat without a studious laxity in the use of the word. And when he comes to that point where he permits his intellect its range, the conception of motion upon which it at once fastens, appears to be selected
Aph. 11.
Aph. 15, p. 105.
