Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 Part 37

[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 [Greek: eidolon] with Plato is the fleeting, transient image of the real thing, and the pa.s.sage evidently referred to by Bacon is that in the _Rep._ vii. 516 A, [Greek: kai proton men tas skias an rhaista kathoroie, kai meta touto en tois hudasi ta te ton anthropon kai ta ton allon eidola, husteron de auta]. 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 cla.s.sification 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 G.o.d 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 a.n.a.lysis gives the first means for the practical operation. Cf. Aristotle, _Eth. Nic._ iii. 3. 12, [Greek: to eschaton en tei a.n.a.lusei proton einai en tei genesei]. 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 [Greek: epagoge]

of Aristotle (see Remusat's _Bacon, &c._, 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. It is evident that the Socratic search for the essence by an a.n.a.lysis of instances--an induction ending in a definition--has a strong resemblance to the Baconian inductive method.

[83] _N. O._ i. 105.

[84] That is to say, differing in nothing save the absence of the nature under investigation.

[85] _Distrib. Op._ (_Works_, iv. 28); _Parasceve_ (_ibid._ 251, 252, 255-256); _Descrip. Glob. Intel._ ch. 3.

[86] _Works_, ii. 16; cf. _N. O._ i. 130.

[87] A Barnabite monk, professor of mathematics and philosophy at Annecy.

[88] _Letters and Life_, vii. 377.

[89] For a full discussion of Bacon's relation to his predecessors and contemporaries, see Fowler's _N. O._ introd. -- 13.

[90] Cf. what Bacon says, _N. O._ i. 130.

[91] Brewster, _Life of Newton_ (1855) (see particularly vol. ii. 403, 405); La.s.son, _uber Bacon von Verulam's wissenschaftliche Principien_ (1860); Liebig, _uber Francis Bacon von Verulam_, &c. (1863). Although Liebig points out how little science proceeds according to Bacon's rules, yet his other criticisms seem of extremely little value. In a very offensive and quite unjustifiable tone, which is severely commented on by Sigwart and Fischer, he attacks the Baconian methods and its results. These results he claims to find in the _Sylva Sylvarum_, entirely ignoring what Bacon himself has said of the nature of that work (_N. O._ i. 117; cf.

Rawley's Pref. to the _S. S._), and thus putting a false interpretation on the experiments there noted. It is not surprising that he should detect many flaws, but he never fails to exaggerate an error, and seems sometimes completely to miss the point of what Bacon says. (See particularly his remarks on _S. S._ 33, 336.) The method he explains in such a way as to show he has not a glimpse of its true nature. He brings against Bacon, of all men, the accusations of making induction start from the undetermined perceptions of the senses, of using imagination, and of putting a quite arbitrary interpretation on phenomena. He crowns his criticism by expounding what he considers to be the true scientific method, which, as has been pointed put by Fischer, is simply that Baconian doctrine against which his attack ought to have been directed. (See his account of the method, _uber Bacon_, 47-49; K. Fischer, _Bacon_, pp. 499-502.)

[92] Mill, _Logic_, ii. pp. 115, 116, 329, 330.

[93] Whewell, _Phil. of Ind. Sc._ ii. 399, 402-403; Ellis, _Int. to Bacon's Works_, i. 39, 61; Brewster, _Newton_, ii. 404; Jevons, _Princ. of Science_ ii. 220. A severe judgment on Bacon's method is given in Duhring's able but one-sided _Kritische Gesch. d. Phil._, in which the merits of Roger Bacon are brought prominently forward.

[94] Although it must be admitted that the Baconian method is fairly open to the above-mentioned objections, it is curious and significant that Bacon was not thoroughly ignorant of them, but with deliberate consciousness preferred his own method. We do not think, indeed, that the _notiones_ of which he speaks in any way correspond to what Whewell and Ellis would call "conceptions or ideas furnished by the mind of the thinker"; nor do we imagine that Bacon would have admitted these as necessary elements in the inductive process. But he was certainly not ignorant of what may be called a deductive method, and of a kind of hypothesis. This is clear from the use he makes of the _Vindemiatio_, from certain hints as to the testing of axioms, from his admission of the syllogism into physical reasoning, and from what he calls _Experientia Literata_. The function of the _Vindemiatio_ has been already pointed out; with regard to axioms, he says (_N. O._ i. 106), "In establishing axioms by this kind of induction, we must also examine and try whether the axiom so established be framed to the measure of these particulars, from which it is derived, or whether it be larger or wider. And if it be larger and wider, we must observe whether, by indicating to us new particulars, it confirm that wideness and largeness as by a collateral security, that we may not either stick fast in things already known, or loosely grasp at shadows and abstract forms, not at things solid and realized in matter." (Cf. also the pa.s.sage from _Valerius Terminus_, quoted in Ellis's note on the above aphorism.) Of the syllogism he says, "I do not propose to give up the syllogism altogether. S. is incompetent for the princ.i.p.al things rather than useless for the generality. In the mathematics there is no reason why it should not be employed. It is the flux of matter and the inconstancy of the physical body which requires induction, that thereby it may be fixed as it were, and allow the formation of notions well defined. In physics you wisely note, and therein I agree with you, that after the notions of the first cla.s.s and the axioms concerning them have been by induction well made out and defined, syllogism may be applied safely; only it must be restrained from leaping at once to the most general notions, and progress must be made through a fit succession of steps."--("Letter to Baranzano," _Letters and Life_, vii. 377). And with this may be compared what he says of mathematics (_Nov. Org._ ii. 8; _Parasceve_, vii.). In his account of _Experientia Literata_ (_De Aug._ v. 2) he comes very near to the modern mode of experimental research. It is, he says, the procedure from one experiment to another, and it is not a science but an art or learned sagacity (resembling in this Aristotle's [Greek: anchinoia]), which may, however, be enlightened by the precepts of the _Interpretatio_. Eight varieties of such experiments are enumerated, and a comparison is drawn between this and the inductive method; "though the rational method of inquiry by the Organon promises far greater things in the end, yet this sagacity, proceeding by learned experience, will in the meantime present mankind with a number of inventions which lie near at hand." (Cf. _N. O._ i. 103.)

[95] See the vigorous pa.s.sage in Herschel, _Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy_, -- 105; cf. -- 96 of the same work.

[96] Bacon himself seems to antic.i.p.ate that the progress of science would of itself render his method antiquated (_Nov. Org._ i. 130).

[97] _Nov. Org._ i. 127.

BACON, JOHN (1740-1799), British sculptor, was born in Southwark on the 24th of November 1740, the son of Thomas Bacon, a cloth-worker, whose forefathers possessed a considerable estate in Somersetshire. At the age of fourteen he was bound apprentice in Mr Crispe's manufactory of porcelain at Lambeth, where he was at first employed in painting the small ornamental pieces of china, but by his great skill in moulding he soon attained the distinction of being modeller to the work. While engaged in the porcelain works his observation of the models executed by different sculptors of eminence, which were sent to be burned at an adjoining pottery, determined the direction of his genius; he devoted himself to the imitation of them with so much success that in 1758 a small figure of Peace sent by him to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts received a prize, and the highest premiums given by that society were adjudged to him nine times between the years 1763 and 1776. During his apprenticeship he also improved the method of working statues in artificial stone, an art which he afterwards carried to perfection. Bacon first attempted working in marble about the year 1763, and during the course of his early efforts in this art was led to improve the method of transferring the form of the model to the marble (technically "getting out the points") by the invention of a more perfect instrument for the purpose. This instrument possessed many advantages above those formerly employed; it was more exact, took a correct measurement in every direction, was contained in a small compa.s.s, and could be used upon either the model or the marble. In the year 1769 he was adjudged the first gold medal for sculpture given by the Royal Academy, his work being a bas-relief representing the escape of Aeneas from Troy. In 1770 he exhibited a figure of Mars, which gained him the gold medal of the Society of Arts and his election as A.R.A. As a consequence of this success he was engaged to execute a bust of George III., intended for Christ Church, Oxford. He secured the king's favour and retained it throughout life. Considerable jealousy was entertained against him by other sculptors, and he was commonly charged with ignorance of cla.s.sic style. This charge he repelled by the execution of a n.o.ble head of Jupiter Tonans, and many of his emblematical figures are in perfect cla.s.sical taste. He died on the 4th of August 1799 and was buried in Whitfield's Tabernacle. His various productions which may be studied in St Paul's cathedral, London, Christ Church and Pembroke College, Oxford, the Abbey church, Bath, and Bristol cathedral, give ample testimony to his powers. Perhaps his best works are to be found among the monuments in Westminster Abbey.

See Richard Cecil, _Memoirs of John Bacon, R.A._ (London. 1801); and also vol. i. of R. Cecil's works, ed. J. Pratt (1811).

BACON, LEONARD (1802-1881), American Congregational preacher and writer, was born in Detroit, Michigan, on the 19th of February 1802, the son of David Bacon (1771-1817), missionary among the Indians in Michigan and founder of the town of Tallmadge, Ohio. The son prepared for college at the Hartford (Conn.) grammar school, graduated at Yale in 1820 and at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1823, and from 1825 until his death on the 24th of December 1881 was pastor of the First Church (Congregational) in New Haven, Connecticut, occupying a pulpit which was one of the most conspicuous in New England, and which had been rendered famous by his predecessors, Moses Stuart and Nathaniel W. Taylor. In 1866, however, though he was never dismissed by a council from his connexion with that church, he gave up the active pastorate. He was, from 1826 to 1838, an editor of the _Christian Spectator_ (New Haven); was one of the founders (1843) of the _New Englander_ (later the _Yale Review_); founded in 1848 with Dr R. S. Storrs, Joshua Leavitt, Dr Joseph P. Thompson and Henry C.

Bowen, primarily to combat slavery extension, the _Independent_, of which he was an editor until 1863; and was acting professor of didactic theology in the theological department of Yale University from 1866 to 1871, and lecturer on church polity and American church history from 1871 until his death. Gradually, after taking up his pastorate, he gained greater and greater influence in his denomination, until he came to be regarded as perhaps the most prominent Congregationalist of his time, and was sometimes popularly referred to as "The Congregational Pope of New England." In all the heated theological controversies of the day, particularly the long and bitter one concerning the views put forward by Dr Horace Bushnell, he was conspicuous, using his influence to bring about harmony, and in the councils of the Congregational churches, over two of which, the Brooklyn councils of 1874 and 1876, he presided as moderator, he manifested great ability both as a debater and as a parliamentarian. In his own theological views he was broad-minded and an advocate of liberal orthodoxy. In all matters concerning the welfare of his community or the nation, moreover, he took a deep and constant interest, and was particularly identified with the temperance and anti-slavery movements, his services to the latter const.i.tuting probably the most important work of his life. In this, as in most other controversies, he took a moderate course, condemning the apologists and defenders of slavery on the one hand and the Garrisonian extremists on the other. His _Slavery Discussed in Occasional Essays from 1833 to 1846_ (1846) exercised considerable influence upon Abraham Lincoln, and in this book appears the sentence, which, as rephrased by Lincoln, was widely quoted: "If that form of government, that system of social order is not wrong--if those laws of the Southern States, by virtue of which slavery exists there, and is what it is, are not wrong--nothing is wrong." He was early attracted to the study of the ecclesiastical history of New England and was frequently called upon to deliver commemorative addresses, some of which were published in book and pamphlet form. Of these, his _Thirteen Historical Discourses_ (1839), dealing with the history of New Haven, and his _Four Commemorative Discourses_ (1866) may be especially mentioned. The most important of his historical works, however, is his _Genesis of the New England Churches_ (1874). He published _A Manual for Young Church Members_ (1833); edited, with a biography, the _Select Practical Writings of Richard Baxter_ (1831); and was the author of a number of hymns, the best-known of which is the one beginning,

"O G.o.d, beneath Thy guiding hand Our exiled fathers crossed the sea."

There is no good biography, but there is much biographical material in the commemorative volume issued by his congregation, _Leonard Bacon, Pastor of the First Church in New Haven_ (New Haven, 1882), and there is a good sketch in Williston Walker's _Ten New England Leaders_ (New York, 1901).

[v.03 p.0153] Leonard Bacon's sister DELIA BACON (1811-1859), born in Tallmadge, Ohio, on the 2nd of February 1811, was a teacher in schools in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, and then, until about 1852, conducted in various eastern cities, by methods devised by herself, cla.s.ses for women in history and literature. She wrote _Tales of the Puritans_ (1831), _The Bride of Fort Edward_ (1839), based on the story of Jane McCrea, partly in blank verse, and _The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded_ (1857), for which alone she is remembered. This book, in the preparation of which she spent several years in study in England, where she was befriended by Thomas Carlyle and especially by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was intended to prove that the plays attributed to Shakespeare were written by a coterie of men, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, for the purpose of inculcating a philosophic system, for which they felt that they themselves could not afford to a.s.sume the responsibility. This system she professed to discover beneath the superficial text of the plays. Her devotion to this one idea, as Hawthorne says, "had thrown her off her balance," and while she was in England she lost her mind entirely. She died in Hartford, Connecticut, on the 2nd of September 1859.