PROFESSOR FOVt'LER'S EDITION OF THE NOVUM ORGANUM OF BACON.*

MANY have been the commentaries on the writings and philo- sophy of Bacon, and especially on the great unfinished Novum Organum, from the incidental remarks of authors almost contem- porary with himself, more numerous perhaps at that time in Italy than in either his own country or in France, down to the intense laudation of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists; the admirable dis- sertations of Dugald Stewart and Playfair, prefixed to the Encyclopmdia Britannica ; in still more recent times, the brilliant but very defective essay of Macaulay ; the life, by Sir D. Brewster; the industrious work of the late Macvey Napier ; the writings of Rimusat and of Kitchin ; the outrageous attack of Baron Liebig ; and finally, the splendid edition and notes of Messrs. Ellis, Spedding, and Heath.

The present edition of the Novum Organum, with an admirable • Bacon's Norum Organum. Edited, with Notes, Introduction, lee., by Thomas Fowler, MA, Professor of Logic in the University of Oxford, Fellow of Lincoln College. Oxford : Clarendon Press. 1378. introduction, and most useful notes by Professor Fowler, fulfils a purpose not very well served by any previous author,—that of a learned, discriminating, and not too bulky guide to the student of that great revolution in human thought, or at least in the method of investigating scientific truth, of which Lord Bacon was at once the product and the most powerful promoter. The vast strides made during the last half-century by the physical sciences have probably led to an increased study of the works of Bacon, and very naturally there has been an anxiety on the part of those sen- sationist and materialistic schools of thought which are now so predominant, to enlist his gigantic name in their own ranks, and to pose him as the first link in the chain which has led to these modern results. In so far as method is concerned, the culti- vators of material science are well entitled to claim him,— to say so is almost a truism ; and that the tendency of his writings is in the direction of the senaationism of Locke, is equally certain. Bacon and Locke have been the un- conscious parents of important and aggressive systems of modern thought in considerable variety of development, which would have created no small astonishment and alarm in their minds, had they been presented to them as their legitimate and logical offspring.

Professor Fowler, though known to be a professed admirer of a certain phase of modern philosophy and of certain views of logic, is remarkably fair and discriminating in his estimate of the position of Bacon, and of his influence on the tone of modern speculation. While claiming for Bacon's method, and still more for his general teaching, a profound influence upon the "most characteristic school of English psychologists and moralists, and through it, upon a most important school of European philo- sophy," he freely admits that Bacon was not the founder or pro- mulgator of any system of ontology or metaphysics, or even of psychology or ethics, but, properly speaking, a logician and a methodiser of the process of investigating physical truth. Of the many difficult questions belonging to a deeper stratum of thought than the science of matter, which now agitate the minds of men, we find few traces in his works. In their scholastic form, such puzzles had been carried to the extent of absurdity and frivolity, during the long ages in which the Stagyrite reigned as an in- spired authority ; and in those more modern forms into which they have been gradually developed, starting from the genius of Descartes, they had not yet been seriously mooted.

Bacon, as we have said, did not concern himself with meta- physical speculation, properly so called. His mind was one which, but for the strength of his natural religious sentiment, might have tended towards Agnosticism. His whole writings are pene- trated by a conviction of the necessity of distinguishing between the knowable and unknowable ; his instinctive religious feeling, and probably also his educational surroundings, made him a

thorough believer in Christianity. He might have discovered, had his metaphysics reached to a deeper stratum, how pro- foundly that very belief, in its essentials, if not in all its outworks, sprang from the very structure of his own soul ; but

occupied intensely with the method of observational and experi- mental research into the facts of material things, he attributed his religious convictions mainly, if not entirely, to an external authority, which admitted of no appeal, and whose dicta were to be received with childlike faith. In the sixty-eighth aphorism (Lib. I.), after saying that the various " idola " must be removed, and the intellect completely freed from them, are these words :- " Ut non alias fere sit aditus ad regnum hominis, quod funditur

in scientiis, quam ad regnum coelorum, in quod, nisi sub persona

infantis, intrare non datur." The words of the eighty-ninth aphorism still more strongly illustrate his complete separation of theology from philosophy and science. His state of mind on this point is far from being peculiar to him. It is to be found elsewhere, in two very opposite forms. We find it, on the one hand, in some of the strongest intelligences, in Newton and in Faraday, and even traces of it, where it is least to be expected, in Hamilton, in much the same shape as in Bacon, as well as in a host of popularising writers, whose sharp

distinction of "Reason " and " Faith "—the latter term ex- pressing no very distinct idea, at least in antithesis to " reason "-

has thrown many anxious minds into unhappy confusion, and has soothed others into an illogical repose ; and we find it, on the other hand, in the very different form of relegating religion and theology to the realms of emotion and poetry, in many of the leading speculations of the present day. As a natural, but not necessary result, of Bacon's position in this respect, his ethics are almost entirely the result of theology, as every student of the Seventh Book of the " De Augmentis " will find. Somewhat in- consistently, however, we discover glimpses elsewhere of the thought that ethics, as a science, may be studied inductively.

Professor Fowler's remarks on all these phases of the mind of Bacon are full of clear and candid analysis, and replete with interest and instruction ; but of course the greater part of the work is occupied with the consideration of the weighty aphorisms or rules for the guidance of the inductive logic. His notes on those por- tions of the Organum which deal with the various " Idola," appear to us specially successful. His attempts to elucidate the exact meaning and value in the mind of Bacon of the term "form,"

which has been the subject of so much difficulty, is elaborate and subtle, but hardly perhaps so clear as that of Ellis and Spedding.

His candour and discrimination are conspicuous in his treatment of Bacon's apparent contempt for hypothesis, and for the recog- nition of final causes as elements in the process of scientific in- quiry, a contempt the expression of which was exaggerated by the strength of reaction against the puerile and fantastic imagina- tion which had become common during the reign of scholasticism. The childish reverence for authority to which the world had come in the generation preceding that of Bacon, even in regard to things which were patent to the eyes of anybody who chose to look at them, is scarcely exaggerated in the stories given in Galileo's

Dialogues, such as the often quoted tale of the philosopher who, on seeing a careful dissection of the nervous system, declared that, but for the authority of Aristotle, he could almost be per- suaded that the nerves took their origin from the brain and spinal cord, and not from the heart ; and the disgust which this superstition created in a mind like Bacon's, eminently shrewd and practical, may well have led to an excess of zeal in the oppo- site direction, and a strength of expression which suggests an ex- clusiveness of opinion which his large mind was far from seriously entertaining. Almost every one of those apparently exclusive views which so pervade his general writings, will be found by

the diligent student to be qualified by some rare and isolated but pithy remark, showing that his mind was open to the value of sources of light and objects to be aimed at different from those which supply the key-note of his method. " Hypotheses non fingo," a favourite maxim of Newton, was derived from the teaching of Bacon, and in reference to the extravagances of that time, required to be vigorously enforced ; yet in the twentieth aphorism of the Second Book he distinctly enough recom- mends their use, under due precaution. His practical and philanthropic mind led him to lay such stress on the value of

science in increasing the power of man, that one is apt to look on him as a utilitarian, constantly asking, " Cui bono ?" in reference to mere material progress. Yet he says, " Experiments which give light, not those which produce fruit, are to be sought after." He talks of theology, and even the rules of right and wrong, as if

they had no foundation anywhere but in the written Word ; yet in the Ninth Book of the "De Augmentis " be ascribes our moral sentiments to natural intuition, as well as to a sort of divine influence acting on the individual mind :—

" Notandam tames, Lumen Naturae dnplici signification accipi, primo, quatenua oritur ex sense, inductione, rations, argumentis, secundum loges coeli ac terra3; sect:ludo, quatonus animae humane interne affulget instincts, secundum legem conscientiae; quae scintilla quaedum est, at tanquam reliquiae, pristine at primitive° puritatis."

Professor Fowler, it may be observed, scarcely shows his usual clearness and freedom from prepossession in his remarks on this passage, which he quotes in his Introduction, apparently seeing in it, only with hesitation, the recognition by Bacon of the existence and authority of some of the primary intuitions of our spiritual nature.

A large portion of the editor's part of this book is naturally occupied with the discussion of the amount of Bacon's actual scientific knowledge. Nothing is more puzzling to the modern student than the incongruity between his scientific mistakes and often absurd theories and beliefs, and the profound sagacity of his maxims. Much of the former is to be explained by the state of knowledge at his time, by his own comparative ignorance of mathematics, and some even of what many looked on as super- stitious beliefs, had a not illogical foundation in his theory of "forms" and "simple natures," and find an echo in more than one product of extremely modern speculation. His ignoring of the psychological discoveries of Harvey, his own contemporary, and his total rejection of the doctrine of Copernicus are blots which it is not so easy to explain or excuse.

It is impossible in our limited space to enter in detail upon Professor Fowler's able observations in his introduction and notes on the "Aphorisms." Whether entirely beyond the reach of cavil or not, they will be found eminently suggestive and most valuable to the student. We cannot better conclude this brief notice of an elaborate and careful book on a long subject, than by quoting a portion of the author's remarks on the "present value" of Bacon's logical works,—that is to say, their present value, as distinguished from their historical importance, and from the influ- ence which they have exerted on the past progress of human knowledge :—

" The intrinsic value of Bacon's logical works to the student at the present time, apart from their historical interest, as having, to adopt tho fino saving of Macaulay, `moved the intellects which have moved the world,' may be briefly considered under two aspects. The first of these is their general effect in guarding, stimulating. and disciplin- ing the intellect ; the second is the amount of definite logical doctrine, comprised in then], which retains any permanent value. With regard to the first point, I know no work of the same kind so stimulating to a young reader, or so likely to form habits of independent investigation, as the First Book of the Novara Orgartwn. What Bacon says of Plato is eminently true of himself. He was ' a man of a sublime genius, who took a view of everything as from a high rock.' Now, to the young student, I know nothing of so much importance as to be brought into contact with works of real genius ; and there must bo many men who recollect the transition from dry manuals of logic to the brilliant pages of Bacon as forming one of the eras of their lives. Maxims such as these, 'Homo Natures minister at interpres,' Scientia et potentia humane in idem coineidunt," Lucifera ex- perimenta, non fructifera, querenda," Recto, Veritas temporis fills dicitur, non Auctoritas," Possima res est errorum apotheosis,' which sparkle on almost every page, live long in the memory, and insensibly influence our whole habit of thought. The educa- tional value of the Norma Organum has never, I think, been sufficiently pointed out, but it seems to me very real and im- portant There is something about Bacon's diction, hie quaintness of expression, and his power of illustration, which lays hold of the mind, and lodges itself in the memory in a way which we can hardly find paralleled in any other author, except it be Shakespeare. And what are the lessons which he thus effectually communicates ? The duty of taking nothing upon trust which wo can verify for ourselves, of rigidly examining our first principles, of being carefully on our guard against the various delusions arising from the peculiarities of human nature, from our various interests and pursuits, from the force of words, and from tho disputes and traditions of the Schools, the duty of forming our conclusions slowly, and of constantly checking them by comparison with the facts of nature and life, of avoiding merely subtle and frivolous disputations, of confining our inquiries to questions the solution of which is within our power, and of subordinating all our investigations to the welfare of man and society."

On the second question, the amount of definite logical teaching in Bacon's works which retains a permanent value, he says truly that the answer is less easy. His views upon this, which is the- most practical and important of all questions connected with Bacon, are not such as can be quoted or condensed. Without the foolish enthusiasm of some eulogists, and admitting that Bacon, regarding it as his special province to be the apostle of the other aide of reasoning, was disposed to undervalue the syllogism, and that he was not fully alive to the uses of hypo- thesis, he is disposed to attribute to Bacon's logical rules and maxims, and more especially to the "Praerogativae Inatantiarum," much more intrinsic value, even for the scientific men of the present day, than is usually accorded to them, though, as he says, not disposed to differ substantially from the judgment of M. de Remusat,—" Sea vues generales restent la preuve la plus populaire de son genie."