enced against the idols of
traditional or scholastic science. We see how the _idola tribus_, the
_idola specus_, the _idola fori_, and the _idola theatri_, are destroyed
by his iconoclastic philosophy. After all these are destroyed, there
remains nothing but uncertainty and doubt; and it is in this state of
nudity, approaching very nearly to the _tabula rasa_ of Locke, that the
human mind should approach the new temple of nature. Here lies the radical
difference between Bacon and Des Cartes, between Realism and Idealism. Des
Cartes also, like Bacon, destroys all former knowledge. He proves that we
know nothing for certain. But after he has deprived the human mind of all
its imaginary riches, he does not lead it on, like Bacon, to a study of
nature, but to a study of itself as the only subject which can be known
for certain, _Cogito, ergo sum_. His philosophy leads to a study of the
fundamental laws of knowing and being; that of Bacon enters at once into
the gates of nature, with the innocence of a child (to use his own
expression) who enters the kingdom of God. Bacon speaks, indeed, of a
_Philosophia prima_ as a kind of introduction to Divine, Natural, and
Human Philosophy; but he does not discuss in this preliminary chapter the
problem of the possibility of knowledge, nor was it with him the right
place to do so. It was destined by him as a "receptacle for all such
profitable observations and axioms as fall not within the compass of the
special parts of philosophy or sciences, but are more common, and of a
higher stage." He mentions himself some of these axioms, such as--"_Si
inaequalibus aequalia addas, omnia erunt inaequalia;_" "_Quae in eodem tertio
conveniunt, et inter se conveniunt;_" "_Omnia mutantur, nil interit._" The
problem of the possibility of knowledge would generally be classed under
metaphysics; but what Bacon calls _Metaphysique_ is, with him, a branch of
philosophy treating only on Formal and Final Causes, in opposition to
_Physique_, which treats on Material and Efficient Causes. If we adopt
Bacon's division of philosophy, we might still expect to find the
fundamental problem discussed in his chapter on Human Philosophy; but
here, again, he treats man only as a part of the continent of Nature, and
when he comes to consider the substance and nature of the soul or mind, he
declines to enter into this subject, because "the true knowledge of the
nature and state of soul must come by the same inspiration that