[48] See also "Letter to Fulgentio," Letters and Life, vii. 533.

[49] Fil. Lab.; Cog. et Visa. i.; cf. Pref. to Ins. Mag.

[50] Val. Ter. 232; cf. N. O. i. 124.

[51] Letters, i. 123.

[52] N. O. i. 116.

[53] Fil. Lab. 5; cf. N. O. i. 81; Val. Ter. (Works, iii. 235); Advancement, bk. i. (Works, iii. 294).

[54] Fil. Lab. 5; cf. N. O. i. 81; Val. Ter. (Works, iii. 222-233); New Atlantis (Works, iii. 156).

[55] N. O. i. 116.

[56] Ibid. i. 124.

[57] Ibid. i. 6.

[58] The word Idola is manifestly borrowed from Plato. It is used twice in connexion with the Platonic Ideas (N. O. i. 23, 124) and is contrasted with them as the false appearance. The εἴδολον with Plato is the fleeting, transient image of the real thing, and the passage evidently referred to by Bacon is that in the Rep. vii. 516 A, καὶ πρῶτον μὲν τὰς σκιὰς ἂν ῥᾷστα καθορῴη, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο ἐν τοῖς ὕδασι τά τε τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων εἴδωλα, ὕστερον δὲ αὐτά. It is explained well in the Advancement, bk. i. (Works, iii. 287). (For valuable notes on the Idola, see T. Fowler's Nov. Org. i. 38 notes; especially for a comparison of the Idola with Roger Bacon's Offendicula.)

[59] N. O. i. 58.

[60] N. O. i. 79, 80, 98, 108.

[61] On the meaning of the word form in Bacon's theory see also Fowler's N. O. introd. § 8.

[62] N. O. ii. 1.

[63] This better known in the order of nature is nowhere satisfactorily explained by Bacon. Like his classification of causes, and in some degree his notion of form itself, it comes from Aristotle. See An. Post. 71 b 33; Topic, 141 b 5; Eth. Nic. 1095 a 30. It should be observed that many writers maintain that the phrase should be notiora natura; others, notiora naturae. See Fowler's N. O. p. 199 note.

[64] N. O. ii. 17.

[65] Ibid. i. 51.

[66] Ibid. i. 75.

[67] Ibid. ii. 2.

[68] Valerius Terminus, iii. 228-229.

[69] Cf. N. O. ii. 27. Bacon nowhere enters upon the questions of how such a science is to be constructed, and how it can be expected to possess an independent method while it remains the mere receptacle for the generalizations of the several sciences, and consequently has a content which varies with their progress. His whole conception of Prima Philosophia should be compared with such a modern work as the First Principles of Herbert Spencer.

[70] It is to be noticed that this scale of nature corresponds with the scale of ascending axioms.

[71] Cf. also for motions, N. O. ii. 48.

[72] The knowledge of final causes does not lead to works, and the consideration of them must be rigidly excluded from physics. Yet there is no opposition between the physical and final causes; in ultimate resort the mind is compelled to think the universe as the work of reason, to refer facts to God and Providence. The idea of final cause is also fruitful in sciences which have to do with human action. (Cf. De Aug. iii. cc. 4, 5; Nov. Org. i. 48, ii. 2.)

[73] De Aug. iii. 4. In the Advancement (Works, iii. 355) it is distinctly said that they are not to be inquired into. One can hardly see how the Baconian method could have applied to concrete substances.

[74] Thus the last step in the theoretical analysis gives the first means for the practical operation. Cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. iii. 3. 12, τὸ ἔσχατον ἐν τῇ ἀναλύσει πρῶτον εἶναι ἐν τῇ γενέσει. Cf. also Nov. Org. i. 103.

[75] Cogitationes (Works, iii. 187).

[76] N. O. ii. 10.

[77] Pref. to Instaur. Cf. Valerius Term. (Works, iii. 224), and N. O. i. 68, 124.

[78] Pref. to Inst.

[79] Bacon's summary is valuable. "In the whole of the process which leads from the senses and objects to axioms and conclusions, the demonstrations which we use are deceptive and incompetent. The process consists of four parts, and has as many faults. In the first place, the impressions of the sense itself are faulty, for the sense both fails us and deceives us. But its shortcomings are to be supplied and its deceptions to be corrected. Secondly, notions are all drawn from the impressions of the sense, and are indefinite and confused, whereas they should be definite and distinctly bounded. Thirdly, the induction is amiss which infers the principles of sciences by simple enumeration, and does not, as it ought, employ exclusions and solutions (or separations) of nature. Lastly, that method of discovery and proof according to which the most general principles are first established, and then intermediate axioms are tried and proved by them, is the parent of error and the curse of all science." - N. O. i. 69.

[80] N. O. i. 105.

[81] Ibid., i. 104; cf. i. 19-26.

[82] This extract gives an answer to the objection sometimes raised that Bacon is not original in his theory of induction. He certainly admits that Plato has used a method somewhat akin to his own; but it has frequently been contended that his induction is nothing more than the ἐπάγωγη of Aristotle (see Rémusat's Bacon, etc., pp. 310-315, and for a criticism, Waddington, Essais de Logique, p. 261. sqq.) This seems a mistake. Bacon did not understand by induction the argument from particulars to a general proposition; he looked upon the exclusion and rejection, or upon elimination, as the essence of induction. To this process he was led by his doctrine of forms, of which it is the necessary consequence; it is the infallible result of his view of science and its problem, and is as original as that is. Whoever accepts Bacon's doctrine of cause must accept at the same time his theory of the way in which the cause may be sifted out from among the phenomena.