FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143  
144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   >>   >|  
English, is that by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, which has been republished in America. BACON'S DEFECTS.--Further than this tabular outline, neither our space nor the scope of our work will warrant us in going; but it is important to consider briefly the elements of Bacon's remarkable fame. His system and his knowledge are superseded entirely. Those who have studied physics and chemistry at the present day, know a thousand-fold more than Bacon could; for such knowledge did not exist in his day. But he was one of those--and the chief one--who, in that age of what is called the childhood of experimental philosophy, helped to clear away the mists of error, and prepare for the present sunshine of truth. "I have been laboring," says some writer, (quoted by Bishop Whately, Pref. to Essay XIV.,) "to render myself useless." Such was Bacon's task, and such the task of the greatest inventors, discoverers, and benefactors of the human race. Nor did Bacon rank high even as a natural philosopher or physicist in his own age: he seems to have refused credence to the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo, which had stirred the scientific world into great activity before his day; and his investigations in botany and vegetable physiology are crude and full of errors. His mind, eminently philosophic, searched for facts only to establish principles and discover laws; and he was often impatient or obstinate in this search, feeling that it trammelled him in his haste to reach conclusions. In the consideration of the reason, he unduly despised the _Organon_ of Aristotle, which, after much indignity and misapprehension, still remains to elucidate the universal principle of reasoning, and published his new organon--_Novum Organum_--as a sort of substitute for it: Induction unjustly opposed to the Syllogism. In what, then, consists that wonderful excellence, that master-power which has made his name illustrious? HIS FAME.--I. He labored earnestly to introduce, in the place of fanciful and conjectural systems--careful, patient investigation: the principle of the procurement of well-known facts, in order that, by severe induction, philosophy might attain to general laws, and to a classification of the sciences. The fault of the ages before him had been hasty, careless, often neglected observation, inaccurate analysis, the want of patient successive experiment. His great motto was experiment, and again and again experiment; and the exc
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143  
144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
experiment
 

knowledge

 

present

 

philosophy

 

patient

 
principle
 
reason
 

unduly

 
despised
 

consideration


neglected

 

conclusions

 
reasoning
 

Aristotle

 
misapprehension
 

remains

 
elucidate
 
indignity
 

universal

 

observation


Organon

 

inaccurate

 

philosophic

 

searched

 

eminently

 

errors

 

establish

 

principles

 

analysis

 

search


feeling

 
published
 

obstinate

 

impatient

 

discover

 
successive
 

trammelled

 
careless
 

induction

 
labored

attain
 

general

 
illustrious
 
earnestly
 

introduce

 

procurement

 
careful
 

systems

 
conjectural
 

severe