But deductive logic is the creation of Aristotle; and it was the authority of Aristotle that Bacon sought to subvert. The inductive process is also old, of which Bacon is called the father. How are these things to be reconciled and explained? Wherein and how did Bacon adapt his method to the discovery of truth, which was his principal aim,—that method which is the great cause of modern progress in science, the way to it being indicated by him pre- eminently?
The whole thing consists in this, that Bacon pointed out the right road to truth,—as a board where two roads meet or diverge indicates the one which is to be followed. He did not make a system, like Descartes or Spinoza or Newton: he showed the way to make it on sound principles. "He laid down a systematic analysis and arrangement of inductive evidence." The syllogism, the great instrument used by Aristotle and the Schoolmen, "is, from its very nature, incompetent to prove the ultimate premises from which it proceeds; and when the truth of these remains doubtful, we can place no confidence in the conclusions drawn from them." Hence, the first step in the reform of science is to review its ultimate principles; and the first condition of a scientific method is that it shall be competent to conduct such an inquiry; and this method is applicable, not to physical science merely, but to the whole realm of knowledge. This, of course, includes poetry, art, intellectual philosophy, and theology, as well as geology and chemistry.
And it is this breadth of inquiry—directed to subjective as well as objective knowledge—which made Bacon so great a benefactor. The defect in Macaulay's criticism is that he makes Bacon interested in mere outward phenomena, or matters of practical utility,—a worldly utilitarian of whom Epicureans may be proud. In reality he soared to the realm of Plato as well as of Aristotle. Take, for instance, his Idola Mentis Humanae, or "Phantoms of the Human Mind," which compose the best-known part of the "Novum Organum." "The Idols of the Tribe" would show the folly of attempting to penetrate further than the limits of the human faculties permit, as also "the liability of the intellect to be warped by the will and affections, and the like." The "Idols of the Den" have reference to "the tendency to notice differences rather than resemblances, or resemblances rather than differences, in the attachment to antiquity or novelty, in the partiality to minute or comprehensive investigations." "The Idols of the Market- Place" have reference to the tendency to confound words with things, which has ever marked controversialists in their learned disputatious. In what he here says about the necessity for accurate definitions, he reminds us of Socrates rather than a modern scientist; this necessity for accuracy applies to metaphysics as much as it does to physics. "The Idols of the Theatre" have reference to perverse laws of demonstration which are the strongholds of error. This school deals in speculations and experiments confined to a narrow compass, like those of the alchemists,—too imperfect to elicit the light which should guide.
Bacon having completed his discussion of the Idola, then proceeds, to point out the weakness of the old philosophies, which produced leaves rather than fruit, and were stationary in their character. Here he would seem to lean towards utilitarianism, were it not that he is as severe on men of experiment as on men of dogma. "The men of experiment are," says he, "like ants,—they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course; it gathers the material from the flowers, but digests it by a power of its own. . . . So true philosophy neither chiefly relies on the powers of the mind, nor takes the matter which it gathers and lays it up in the memory, whole as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding, to be transformed and digested." Here he simply points out the laws by which true knowledge is to be attained. He does not extol physical science alone, though doubtless he had a preference for it over metaphysical inquiries. He was an Englishman, and the English mind is objective rather than subjective, and is prone to over- value the outward and the seen, above the inward and unseen; and perhaps for the same reason that the Old Testament seems to make prosperity the greatest blessing, while adversity seems to be the blessing of the New Testament.
One of Bacon's longest works is the "Silva Sylvarum,"—a sort of natural history, in which he treats of the various forces and productions of Nature,—the air the sea, the winds, the clouds, plants and animals, fire and water, sounds and discords, colors and smells, heat and cold, disease and health; but which varied subjects he presents to communicate knowledge, with no especial utilitarian end.
"The Advancement of Learning" is one of Bacon's most famous productions, but I fail to see in it an objective purpose to enable men to become powerful or rich or comfortable; it is rather an abstract treatise, as dry to most people as legal disquisitions, and with no more reference to rising in the world than "Blackstone's Commentaries" or "Coke upon Littleton." It is a profound dissertation on the excellence of learning; its great divisions treating of history, poetry, and philosophy,—of metaphysical as well as physical philosophy; of the province of understanding, the memory, the will, the reason, and the imagination; and of man in society,—of government, of universal justice, of the fountains of law, of revealed religion.
And if we turn from the new method by which he would advance all knowledge, and on which his fame as a philosopher chiefly rests,— that method which has led to discoveries that even Bacon never dreamed of, not thinking of the fruit he was to bestow, but only the way to secure it,—even as a great inventor thinks more of his invention than of the money he himself may reap from it, as a work of creation to benefit the world rather than his own family, and in the work of which his mind revels in a sort of intoxicated delight, like a true poet when he constructs his lines, or a great artist when he paints his picture,—a pure subjective joy, not an anticipated gain;—if we turn from this "method" to most of his other writings, what do we find? Simply the lucubrations of a man of letters, the moral wisdom of the moralist, the historian, the biographer, the essayist. In these writings we discover no more worldliness than in Macaulay when he wrote his "Milton," or Carlyle when he penned his "Burns,"—even less, for Bacon did not write to gain a living, but to please himself and give vent to his burning thoughts. In these he had no worldly aim to reach, except perhaps an imperishable fame. He wrote as Michael Angelo sculptured his Moses; and he wrote not merely amid the cares and duties of a great public office, with other labors which might be called Herculean, but even amid pains of disease and the infirmities of age,—when rest, to most people, is the greatest boon and solace of their lives.
Take his Essays,—these are among his best-known works,—so brilliant and forcible, suggestive and rich, that even Archbishop Whately's commentaries upon them are scarcely an addition. Surely these are not on material subjects, and indicate anything but a worldly or sordid nature. In these famous Essays, so luminous with the gems of genius, we read not such worldly-wise exhortations as Lord Chesterfield impressed upon his son, not the gossiping frivolities of Horace Walpole, not the cynical wit of Montaigne, but those great certitudes which console in affliction, which kindle hope, which inspire lofty resolutions,—anchors of the soul, pillars of faith, sources of immeasurable joy, the glorious ideals of true objects of desire, the eternal unities of truth and love and beauty; all of which reveal the varied experiences of life and the riches of deeply-pondered meditation on God and Christianity, as well as knowledge of the world and the desirableness of its valued gifts. How beautiful are his thoughts on death, on adversity, on glory, on anger, on friendship, on fame, on ambition, on envy, on riches, on youth and old age, and divers other subjects of moral import, which show the elevation of his soul, and the subjective as well as the objective turn of his mind; not dwelling on what he should eat and what he should drink and wherewithal he should be clothed, but on the truths which appeal to our higher nature, and which raise the thoughts of men from earth to heaven, or at least to the realms of intellectual life and joy.
And then, it is necessary that we should take in view other labors which dignified Bacon's retirement, as well as those which marked his more active career as a lawyer and statesman,—his histories and biographies, as well as learned treatises to improve the laws of England; his political discourses, his judicial charges, his theological tracts, his speeches and letters and prayers; all of which had relation to benefit others rather than himself. Who has ever done more to instruct the world,—to enable men to rise not in fortune merely, but in virtue and patriotism, in those things which are of themselves the only reward? We should consider these labors, as well as the new method he taught to arrive at knowledge, in our estimate of the sage as well as of the man. He was a moral philosopher, like Socrates. He even soared into the realm of supposititious truth, like Plato. He observed Nature, like Aristotle. He took away the syllogism from Thomas Aquinas,—not to throw contempt on metaphysical inquiry or dialectical reasoning, but to arrive by a better method at the knowledge of first principles; which once established, he allowed deductions to be drawn from them, leading to other truths as certainly as induction itself. Yea, he was also a Moses on the mount of Pisgah, from which with prophetic eye he could survey the promised land of indefinite wealth and boundless material prosperity, which he was not permitted to enter, but which he had bequeathed to civilization. This may have been his greatest gift in the view of scientific men,—this inductive process of reasoning, by which great discoveries have been made after he was dead. But this was not his only legacy, for other things which he taught were as valuable, not merely in his sight, but to the eye of enlightened reason. There are other truths besides those of physical science; there is greatness in deduction as well as in induction. Geometry— whose successive and progressive revelations are so inspiring, and which have come down to us from a remote antiquity, which are even now taught in our modern schools as Euclid demonstrated them, since they cannot be improved—is a purely deductive science. The scholastic philosophy, even if it was barren and unfruitful in leading to new truths, yet confirmed what was valuable in the old systems, and by the severity of its logic and its dialectical subtleties trained the European mind for the reception of the message of Luther and Bacon; and this was based on deductions, never wrong unless the premises are unsound. Theology is deductive reasoning from truths assumed to be fundamental, and is inductive only so far as it collates Scripture declarations, and interprets their meaning by the aid which learning brings. Is not this science worthy of some regard? Will it not live when all the speculations of evolutionists are forgotten, and occupy the thoughts of the greatest and profoundest minds so long as anything shall be studied, so long as the Bible shall be the guide of life? Is it not by deduction that we ascend from Nature herself to the God of Nature? What is more certain than deduction when the principles from which it reasons are indisputably established?
Is induction, great as it is, especially in the explorations of Nature and science, always certain? Are not most of the sciences which are based upon it progressive? Have we yet learned the ultimate principles of political economy, or of geology, or of government, or even of art? The theory of induction, though supposed by Dr. Whewell to lead to certain results, is regarded by Professor Jevons as leading to results only "almost certain." "All inductive inference is merely probable," says the present professor of logic, Thomas Fowler, in the University of Oxford.