is he neither knows anything nor can do
anything."

This aphorism is placed by Sir John Herschel[119] at the head of his
_Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy_: a book containing notions
of discovery far beyond any of which Bacon ever dreamed; and this because
it was written {81} after discovery, instead of before. Sir John Herschel,
in his version, has avoided the translation of _re vel mente observaverit_,
and gives us only "by his observation of the order of nature." In making
this the opening of an excellent sermon, he has imitated the theologians,
who often employ the whole time of the discourse in stuffing matter into
the text, instead of drawing matter out of it. By _observation_ he
(Herschel) means the whole course of discovery, observation, hypothesis,
deduction, comparison, etc. The type of the Baconian philosopher as it
stood in his mind, had been derived from a noble example, his own father,
William Herschel,[120] an inquirer whose processes would have been held by
Bacon to have been vague, insufficient, compounded of chance work and
sagacity, and too meagre of facts to deserve the name of induction. In
another work, his treatise on Astronomy,[121] Sir John Herschel, after
noting that a popular account can only place the reader on the threshold,
proceeds to speak as follows of all the higher departments of science. The
italics are his own:

"Admission to its sanctuary, and to the privileges and feelings of a
votary, is only to be gained by one means--_sound and sufficient knowledge
of mathematics, the great instrument of all exact inquiry, without which no
man can ever make such advances in this or any other of the higher
departments of science as can entitle him to form an independent opinion on
any subject of discussion within their range_."

How is this? Man can know no more than he gets from observation, and yet
mathematics is the great instrument of all exact inquiry. Are the results
of mathematical deduction results of observation? We think it likely that
{82} Sir John Herschel would reply that Bacon, in coupling together
_observare re_ and _observare mente_, has done what some wags said Newton
afterwards did in his study-door--cut a large hole of exit for the large
cat, and a little hole for the little cat.[122] But Bacon did no such
thing: he never included any deduction under observation. To mathematics he
had a dislike. He averred that logic and mathematics should be the
handmaids, not th