this system in his own mind. And it is a curious
and interesting fact, and one illustrative, at least,
of the imperfection of Bacon’s exposition of
his own method, that Mr. Ellis and Mr. Spedding, the
two most conscientious investigators of Bacon’s
thought, should have arrived at different conclusions
in regard to the distinctive peculiarities of the
Baconian philosophy. Mr. Spedding, in his very
interesting preface to the “Parasceve,”
suggests, since his own and Mr. Ellis’s conclusions,
though different, do not appear irreconcilable, “whether
there be not room for a third solution, more complete
than either, as including both.” Both he
and Mr. Ellis set out from the position, that “the
philosophy which Bacon meant to announce was in some
way essentially different, not only from any that
had been before, but from any that has been since,”—a
position very much opposed to the popular opinion.
“The triumph of his [Bacon’s] principles
of scientific investigation,” said, not long
since, a writer in the “Quarterly Review,”
whose words may be taken as representative of the
common ideas on the matter, “has made it unnecessary
to revert to the reasoning by which they were established."[B]
But the truth seems to be, that the merits of Bacon
belong, as Mr. Ellis well says, “to the spirit
rather than to the positive precepts of his philosophy.”
Nor does it appear that Bacon himself, although he
indulged the highest hopes and felt the securest confidence
in the results of his perfected system, supposed that
he had given to it that perfection which was required.
In the “De Augmentis Scientiarum,” published
in 1623, two years and a half before his death, he
says: “I am preparing and laboring with
all my might to make the mind of man, by help of art,
a match for the nature of things, (ut mens per
artem fiat rebus par,) to discover an art of Indication
and Direction, whereby all other arts, with their axioms
and works, may be detected and brought to light.
For I have, with good reason, set this down as wanting.”
(Lib. v. c. 2.) Bacon regarded his method, not only
as one wholly new, but also of universal application,
and leading to absolute certainty. Doubt was to
be excluded from its results. By its means, all
the knowledge of which men were capable was to be
attained surely and in a comparatively brief space
of time. Such a conviction, extravagant as it
may seem, is expressed in many passages. In the
Preface to his “Parasceve,” published in
1620, in the same volume with the “Novum Organum,”
he says, that he is about to describe a Natural and
Experimental History, which, if it be once provided,
(and he assumes, that, “etiam vivis nobis,”
it may be provided,) “paucorum annorum opus
futuram esse inquitionem naturae et scientiarum omnium.”
Again, in the Protemium of the “Novum Organum”:
“There was but one course left, to commence
a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all
human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations.”
And in the Dedication to the same work, he says, with
characteristic confidence, “Equidem Organum
praebui,”—“I have provided the
Instrument.”