[56] "The cone and vertical point" itself is "the work which God worketh,"—("summariam nempe Naturæ legem")—and "it may fairly be doubted whether man's inquiry can attain to it. But these three are the true stages of knowledge." De Augmentis, as before. So too in his Valerius he speaks of this "highest generality of motion or summary law of Nature" as reserved by God "within His own curtain."
[57] The great thinker speaks of it as made up in part "of the common principles and axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent to several Sciences;" in part "of the inquiry touching the operation of the relative and adventitious conditions of Essences, as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility, and the rest." These he terms "Transcendentals," and they form a highest kind of philosophical arrangements, "with this distinction and provision, that they be handled as they have efficiency in Nature and not logically."
His instances of common principles show how very vaguely this idea of the first division floated before his mind. Some of them are axioms mathematically certain and true in more than one province of philosophy, others are generalized truths obtained by experience or by comparison of objects diverse in appearance, but to his mind identical or very similar. Among these latter occurs his celebrated saying, that "the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music is the same with the playing of light upon the water";—a thought that haunts us by the seaside and on the shore of mountain lakes while listening to some sweet voice or clear-toned instrument.
From his philosophical arrangements Bacon takes away inquiries into the One, the Good, and the Divine, and assigns them to Natural Theology.
[58] Translation of the De Augmentis in Ellis and Spedding. Vol. iv. p. 346.
[59] Nov. Org. E. and S., iv. 120.
[60] De Augmentis. E. and S., iv. 362.
[61] Kitchin. Nov. Org. p. 134. But Mr. Kitchin believes that could Bacon have witnessed the actual progress of science, it would have led him to recognize the usefulness of Final Causes, in the field of physical inquiry, and by way of illustration proceeds to quote "the famous case of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood from the consideration of the Final Causes of the valves in the veins of the animal body." (Ibid. p. 135.)
[62] Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind. Vol. ii. pp. 310, 11.
[63] In a volume of philosophical Romance some unknown Gulliver of the 19th century bestows many pages of pleasant satire on the Utilitarian principle, assumed as a maxim of social life and pushed to its ultimate conclusions. The author travels into the country of Nowhere (Erewhon), and learns by personal experience, first in a prison, and next in the house of a princely swindler Senoj Nosnibor (alias Jones Robinson) those true laws of Sociology which best subserve the great final end—the noble object laid down by Mr. Mill. Ill-health is made criminal. Immorality counts as being out of sorts. The former is an object of penal justice, the latter of condolence joined with alterative discipline. The swindler sends for his family "straightener," and gets well amidst the sympathy of his friends; the consumptive is condemned to imprisonment and hard labour for the rest of his miserable days. And this is reasonable in itself, and justified by the results,—the Erewhonians possess the finest physique in the world, and rob and embezzle only when they happen to feel tempted. Our traveller himself, though full of old-fashioned moral prejudices, becomes convinced by contemplating the great final cause. "That dislike," he observes, "and even disgust should be felt by the fortunate for the unfortunate, or at any rate for those who have been discovered to have met with any of the more serious and less familiar misfortunes, is not only natural, but desirable for any society, whether of man or brute: what progress either of body or soul had been otherwise possible?"—and again, "I write with great diffidence, but it seems to me that there is no unfairness in punishing people for their misfortunes or rewarding them for their sheer good luck: it is the normal condition of human life that this should be done, and no right-minded person will complain at being subjected to the common treatment. There is no alternative open to us. It is idle to say that men are not responsible for their misfortunes. What is responsibility? Surely to be responsible means to be liable to have to give an answer should it be demanded, and all things which live are responsible for their lives and actions, should society see fit to question them through the mouth of its authorised agent. What is the offence of a lamb that we should rear it, and tend it, and lull it into security, for the express purpose of killing it? Its offence is the misfortune of being something which society wants to eat, and which cannot defend itself. This is ample. Who shall limit the right of society except society itself? And what consideration for the individual is tolerable unless society be the gainer thereby?" Erewhon, pp. 85, 86, and 100, 101.