was not
sufficient experience accumulated in his age from which to generalise
with any effect. So he turned to logic as an instrument for
investigating the mystery of existence, and by bringing physics and
metaphysics together again, he paved the way for a new era--the era of
scepticism.

All the wisdom of the ancient world was powerless against the sceptics.
Faith in truth was extinct; faith in human nature was gone; philosophy
was impossible. And, though the influence of Socrates continued to be
felt in the field of ethics, the ethics of the Greeks were at best
narrow and egotistical. What a light was poured upon all questions of
morality by that one divine axiom, "Love your enemy." No Greek ever
attained the sublimity of such a point of view. Still, the progress made
by the Greeks was immense, and they must ever occupy in the history of
humanity an honourable place.

_III.--Philosophy and Science_

Francis Bacon is the father of experimental philosophy. He owes his
title to his method. Many philosophers, ancient and modern, had
cursorily referred to observation and experiment as furnishing the
materials of physical knowledge; but no one before him had attempted to
systematise the true method of discovery.

He begins his great work by examining into the permanent causes of
error, as these were likely to be operative even after the reformation
of science. For this reason he calls them idols, or false appearances
(from the Greek, _eidolon_), and he divides them into four classes: the
idols of the tribe, or the causes of error due to the general defects of
the human mind; the idols of the den, which spring from weaknesses
peculiar to the character of the individual student; the idols of the
forum, which arise out of the intercourse of society and the power that
words sometimes have of governing thought; and, finally, the idols of
the theatre, which men of great learning pursue when they follow the
systems of famous but mistaken thinkers.

After this preliminary discussion, Bacon goes on to describe the methods
of inductive science. The first step consists in preparing a history of
the phenomena to be explained in all their modifications and varieties.
This history must include not merely such facts as spontaneously offer
themselves, but all experiments instituted for the sake of discovery. It
must be composed with great care; the facts should be accurately related
and distinctly arranged, and their authenticity