His prejudice against mathematics. 78. The ignorance of Bacon in mathematics, and, what was much worse, his inadequate notions of their utility, must be reckoned among the chief defects in his philosophical writings. In a remarkable passage of the Advancement of Learning, he held mathematics to be a part of metaphysics; but the place of this is altered in the Latin, and they are treated as merely auxiliary or instrumental to physical inquiry. He had some prejudice against pure mathematics, and thought they had been unduly elevated in comparison with the realities of nature. “I know not,” he says, “how it has arisen that mathematics and logic, which ought to be the serving-maids of physical philosophy, yet affecting to vaunt the certainty that belongs to them, presume to exercise a dominion over her.” It is surely very erroneous to speak of geometry, which relates to the objective realities of space, and to natural objects so far as extended, as a mere handmaid of physical philosophy, and not rather a part of it. Playfair has made some good remarks on the advantages derived to experimental philosophy itself from the mere application of geometry and algebra. And one of the reflections which this ought to excite is, that we are not to conceive, as some hastily do, that there can be no real utility to mankind, even of that kind of utility which consists in multiplying the conveniences and luxuries of life, springing from theoretical and speculative inquiry. The history of algebra, so barren in the days of Tartaglia and Vieta, so productive of wealth, when applied to dynamical calculations in our own, may be a sufficient answer.
Bacon’s excess of wit. 79. One of the petty blemishes which, though lost in the splendour of Lord Bacon’s excellencies, it is not unfair to mention, is connected with the peculiar characteristics of his mind; he is sometimes too metaphorical and witty. His remarkable talent for discovering analogies seems to have inspired him with too much regard to them as arguments, even when they must appear to any common reader fanciful and far-fetched. His terminology, chiefly for the same reason, is often a little affected, and, in Latin, rather barbarous. The divisions of his prerogative instances in the Novum Organum are not always founded upon intelligible distinctions. And the general obscurity of the style, neither himself nor his assistants being good masters of the Latin language, which at the best is never flexible or copious enough for our philosophy, renders the perusal of both his great works too laborious for the impatient reader. Brucker has well observed that the Novum Organum has been neglected by the generality, and proved of far less service than it would otherwise have been in philosophy, in consequence of these very defects, as well as the real depths of the author’s mind.[216]
[216] Legenda ipsa nobilissima tractatio ab illis est, qui in rerum naturalium inquisitione feliciter progredi cupiunt. Quæ si paulo plus luminis et perspicuitatis haberet, et novorum terminorum et partitionum artificio lectorem non remoraretur, longè plura, quam factum est, contulisset ad philosophiæ emendationem. His enim obstantibus a plerisque hoc organum neglectum est. Hist. Philos. v. 99.
Fame of Bacon on the Continent. 80. What has been the fame of Bacon, “the wisest, greatest, of mankind,” it is needless to say. What has been his real influence over mankind, how much of our enlarged and exact knowledge may be attributed to his inductive method, what of this again has been due to a thorough study of his writings, and what to an indirect and secondary acquaintance with them, are questions of another kind, and less easily solved. Stewart, the philosopher who has dwelt most on the praises of Bacon, while he conceives him to have exercised a considerable influence over the English men of science in the seventeenth century, supposes, on the authority of Montucla, that he did not “command the general admiration of Europe,” till the publication of the preliminary discourse to the French Encyclopædia by Diderot and D’Alembert. This, however, is by much too precipitate a conclusion. He became almost immediately known on the continent. Gassendi was one of his most ardent admirers. Descartes mentions him, I believe, once only, in a letter to Mersenne, in 1632;[217] but he was of all men the most unwilling to praise a contemporary. It may be said that these were philosophers, and that their testimony does not imply the admiration of mankind. But writers of a very different character mention him in a familiar manner. Richelieu is said to have highly esteemed Lord Bacon.[218] And it may in some measure be due to this, that in the Sentimens de l’Académie Français sur le Cid, he is alluded to, simply by the name Bacon, as one well known.[219] Voiture, in a letter to Costar, about the same time, bestows high eulogy on some passages of Bacon which his correspondent had sent to him, and observes that Horace would have been astonished to hear a barbarian Briton discourse in such a style. The treatise De Augmentis was republished in France in 1624, the year after its appearance in England. It was translated into French as early as 1632; no great proofs of neglect. Editions came out in Holland, 1645, 1652, and 1662.[220] Even the Novum Organum, which, as has been said, never became so popular as his other writings, was thrice printed in Holland, in 1645, 1650, and 1660.[221] Leibnitz and Puffendorf are loud in their expressions of admiration, the former ascribing to him the revival of true philosophy as fully as we can at present.[222] I should be more inclined to doubt whether he were adequately valued by his countrymen in his own time, or in the immediately subsequent period. Under the first Stuarts, there was little taste among studious men but for theology, and chiefly for a theology which, proceeding with an extreme deference to authority, could not but generate a disposition of mind, even upon other subjects, alien to the progressive and inquisitive spirit of the inductive philosophy.[223] The institution of the Royal Society, or rather the love of physical science out of which that institution arose, in the second part of the seventeenth century, made England resound with the name of her illustrious chancellor. Few now spoke of him without a kind of homage that only the greatest men receive. Yet still, it was by natural philosophers alone that the writings of Bacon were much studied. The editions of his works, except the Essays, were few; the Novum Organum never came separately from the English press.[224] They were not even much quoted; for I believe it will be found that the fashion of referring to the brilliant passages of the De Augmentis and the Novum Organum, at least in books designed for the general reader, is not much older than the close of the last century. Scotland has the merit of having led the way; Reid, Stewart, Robison, and Playfair turned that which had been a blind veneration into a rational worship; and I should suspect that more have read Lord Bacon within these thirty years than in the two preceding centuries. It may be an usual consequence of the enthusiastic panegyrics lately poured upon his name, that a more positive efficacy has sometimes been attributed to his philosophical writings than they really possessed, and it might be asked whether Italy, where he was probably not much known, were not the true school of experimental philosophy in Europe, whether his methods of investigation were not chiefly such as men of sagacity and lovers of truth might simultaneously have devised. But, whatever may have been the case with respect to actual discoveries in science, we must give to written wisdom its proper meed; no books prior to those of Lord Bacon carried mankind so far on the road to truth; none have obtained so thorough a triumph over arrogant usurpation without seeking to substitute another; and he may be compared with those liberators of nations, who have given them laws by which they might govern themselves, and retained no homage but their gratitude.[225]
[217] Vol. vi., p. 210, edit. Cousin.
[218] The only authority that I can now quote for this is not very good, that of Aubery’s Manuscripts, which I find in Seward’s Anecdotes, iv. 328. But it seems not improbable. The same book quotes Balzac as saying: “Croyons donc, pour l’amour du Chancelier Bacon, que toutes les folies des anciens sont sages; et tous leurs songes mystères, et de celles-là qui sont estimées pures fables, il n’y en a pas une, quelque bizarre et extravagante qu’elle soit, qui n’ait son fondement dans l’histoire, si l’on en veut croire Bacon, et qui n’ait été déguisée de la sorte par les sages du vieux temps, pour la rendre plus utile aux peuples.
[219] P. 44 (1633).
[220] J’ai trouvé parfaitement beau tout ce que vous me mandez de Bacon. Mais ne vous semble t’il pas qu’Horace qui disoit, Visam Britannos hospitibus feros, seroit bien étonné d’entendre un barbare discourir comme cela? Costar is said by Bayle to have borrowed much from Bacon. La Mothe le Vayer mentions him in his Dialogues; in fact, instances are numerous.
[221] Montagu’s Life of Bacon, p. 407. He has not mentioned an edition at Strasburg, 1635, which is in the British Museum.
There is also an edition, without time or place, in the catalogue of the British Museum.