g
proposed as the great object of search there is thereby excluded all that
has hitherto been looked upon as the higher aims of human life, such as the
contemplation of truth. Not so, but by following the new aim we shall also
arrive at a _true_ knowledge of the universe in which we are, for without
knowledge there is no power; truth and utility are in ultimate aspect the
same; "works themselves are of greater value as pledges of truth than as
contributing to the comforts of life."[56] Such was the conception of
philosophy with which Bacon started, and in which he felt himself to be
thoroughly original. As his object was new and hitherto unproposed, so the
method he intended to employ was different from all modes of investigation
hitherto attempted. "It would be," as he says, "an unsound fancy and
self-contradictory, to expect that things which have never yet been done
can be done except by means which have never yet been tried."[57] There
were many obstacles in his way, and he seems always to have felt that the
first part of the new scheme must be a _pars destruens_, a destructive
criticism of all other methods. Opposition was to be expected, not only
from previous philosophies, but especially from the human mind itself. In
the first place, natural antagonism might be looked for from the two
opposed sects, the one of whom, in despair of knowledge, maintained that
all science was impossible; while the other, resting on authority and on
the learning that had been handed down from the Greeks, declared that
science was already completely known, and consequently devoted their
energies to methodizing and elaborating it. Secondly, within the domain of
science itself, properly so called, there were two "kind of rovers" who
must be dismissed. The first were the speculative or logical philosophers,
who construe the universe _ex analogia hominis_, and not _ex analogia
mundi_, who fashion nature according to preconceived ideas, and who employ
in their investigations syllogism and abstract reasoning. The second class,
who were equally offensive, consisted of those who practised blind
experience, which is mere [v.03 p.0146] groping in the dark (_vaga
experientia mera palpatio est_), who occasionally hit upon good works or
inventions, which, like Atalanta's apples, distracted them from further
steady and gradual progress towards universal truth. In place of these
straggling efforts of the unassisted human mind, a graduated system of
he