ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS OF LORD BACON AND MR. LOCKE.* "HISTORY," says Lord Bacon, "is Natural, Civil or Ecclesiastical, or Literary; whereof of the three first I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient. For no man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning, to be described and represented from age to age, as many have done the works of Nature, and the State civil and ecclesiastical; without which the history of the world seemeth to me to be as the statue of Polyphemus with his eye out; that part being wanting which doth most show the spirit and life of the person. And yet I am not ignorant, that in divers particular sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians, the rhetoricians, the philosophers, there are set down some small memorials of the schools, -of authors of books; so likewise some barren relations touching the invention of arts or usages. But a just story of learning, containing the antiquities and originals of knowledges, and their sects, their inventions, their traditions, their divers administrations and managings, their oppositions, decays, depressions, oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of them, and all other events concerning learning throughout the ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be wanting. The use and end of which work I do not so much design for curiosity, or satisfaction of those who are lovers of learning, but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this, in few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and administration of learning."" Though there are passages in the writings of Lord Bacon more splendid than the above, few, probably, better display the union of all the qualities which characterized his philosophical genius. He has in general inspired a fervour of admiration which vents itself in indiscriminate praise, and is very adverse to a calm examination of the character of his understanding, which was very peculiar, and on that account described with more than ordinary imperfection, by that unfortunately *These remarks are extracted from the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvii. p. 180; vol. xxxvi. p. 229.-ED. † Advancement of Learning, book ii. 3 vague and weak part of language which at- It is not so easy to conceive, or at least to describe, other equally essential elements of his greatness, and conditions of his success. His is probably a single instance of a mind which, in philosophizing, always reaches the point of elevation whence the whole prospect is commanded, without ever rising to such a distance as to lose a distinct perception of every part of it.* It is perhaps not less singu He himself who alone was qualified, has described the genius of his philosophy both in respect particulars to generals: "Axiomata infima non to the degree and manner in which he rose from multum ab experientiâ nudâ discrepant. Suprema vero illa et generalissima (quæ habentur) notionalia sunt et abstracta, et nil habent solidi. At media sunt axiomata illa vera, et solida, et viva, in quibus humanæ res et fortunæ sitæ sunt, et supra hæc quoque, tandem ipsa illa generalissima, talia scilicet quæ non abstracta sint, sed per hæc media verè limitantur."-Novum Organum, lib. i. aphoris. 104. 17 B 2 lar, that his philosophy should be founded at once on disregard for the authority of men, and on reverence for the boundaries prescribed by Nature to human inquiry; that he who thought so little of what man had done, hoped so highly of what he could do; that so daring an innovator in science should be so wholly exempt from the love of singularity or paradox; and that the same man who renounced imaginary provinces in the empire of science, and withdrew its landmarks within the limits of experience, should also exhort posterity to push their conquests to its utmost verge, with a boldness which will be fully justified only by the discoveries of ages from which we are yet far distant. No man ever united a more poetical style to a less poetical philosophy. One great end of his discipline is to prevent mysticism and fanaticism from obstructing the pursuit of truth. With a less brilliant fancy, he would have had a mind less qualified for philosophical inquiry. His fancy gave him that power of illustrative metaphor, by which he seemed to have invented again the part of language which respects philosophy; and it rendered new truths more distinctly visible even to his own eye, in their bright clothing of imagery. Without it, he must, like others, have been driven to the fabrication of uncouth technical terms, which repel the mind, either by vulgarity or pedantry, instead of gently leading it to novelties in science, through agreeable analogies with objects already familiar. A considerable portion doubtless of the courage with which he undertook the reformation of philosophy, was caught from the general spirit of his extraordinary age, when the mind of Europe was yet agitated by the joy and pride of emancipation from long bondage. The beautiful mythology, and the poetical history of the ancient world,-not yet become trivial or pedantic,-appeared before his eyes in all their freshness and lustre. To the general reader they were then a discovery as recent as the world disclosed by Columbus. The ancient literature, on which his imagination looked back for illustration, had then as much the charm of novelty as that rising philosophy through which his reason dared to look onward to some of the last periods in its unceasing and resistless course. In order to form a just estimate of this wonderful person, it is essential to fix steadily in our minds, what he was not,-what he did not do, and what he professed neither to be, nor to do. He was not what is called a metaphysician: his plans for the improvement of science were not inferred by abstract reasoning from any of those primary principles to which the philosophers of Greece struggled to fasten their systems. Hence he has been treated as empirical and superficial by those who take to themselves the exclusive name of profound speculators. He was not, on the other hand, a mathematician, an astronomer, a physiologist, a chemist. He was not eminently conversant with the particular truths of any of those sciences which existed irls time. For this reason, he was underrated even by men themselves of the highest merit, and by some who had acquired the most just reputation, by adding new facts to the stock of certain knowledge. It is not therefore very surprising to find, that Harvey, "though the friend as well as physician of Bacon, though he esteemed him much for his wit and style, would not allow him to be a great philosopher;" but said to Aubrey, "He writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor,"-" in derision,❞—as the honest biographer thinks fit expressly to add. On the same ground, though in a manner not so agreeable to the nature of his own claims on reputation, Mr. Hume has decided, that Bacon was not so great a man as Galileo, because he was not so great an astronomer. The same sort of injustice to his memory has been more often committed than avowed, by professors of the exact and the experimental sciences, who are accustomed to regard, as the sole test of service to Knowledge, a palpable addition to her store. It is very true that he made no discoveries: but his life was employed in teaching the method by which discoveries are made. This distinction was early observed by that ingenious poet and amiable man, on whom we, by our unmerited neglect, have taken too severe a revenge, for the exaggerated praises bestowed on him by our ancestors: "Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last, The barren wilderness he past, Did on the very border stand Of the blest promised land; And from the mountain top of his exalted wit, Saw it himself, and showed us it."'* The writings of Bacon do not even abound with remarks so capable of being separated from the mass of previous knowledge and reflection, that they can be called new. This at least is very far from their greatest distinction: and where such remarks occur, they are presented more often as examples of his general method, than as important on their own separate account. In physics, which presented the principal field for discovery, and which owe all that they are, or can be, to his method and spirit, the experiments and observations which he either made or registered, form the least valuable part of his writings, and have furnished some cultivators of that science with an opportunity for an ungrateful triumph over his mistakes. The scattered remarks, on the other hand, of a moral nature, where absolute novelty is precluded by the nature of the subject, manifest most strongly both the superior force and the original bent of his understanding. We more properly contrast than compare the experiments in the Natural History, with the moral and political observations which enrich the Advancement of Learning, the speeches, the letters, the History of Henry VII., and, above all, the Essays, a book which, though it has been praised with equal * Cowley, Ode to the Royal Society. fervour by Voltaire, Johnson and Burke, has | immersion in civil affairs fitted him for this never been characterized with such exact species of scientific reformation. His politijustice and such exquisite felicity of expres- cal course, though in itself unhappy, probasion, as in the discourse of Mr. Stewart.* It bly conduced to the success, and certainly will serve still more distinctly to mark the influenced the character, of the contemplative natural tendency of his mind, to observe that part of his life. Had it not been for his achis moral and political reflections relate to tive habits, it is likely that the pedantry and these practical subjects, considered in their quaintness of his age would have still more most practical point of view; and that he deeply corrupted his significant and majestic has seldom or never attempted to reduce to style. The force of the illustrations which theory the infinite particulars of that "civil he takes from his experience of ordinary life, knowledge," which, as he himself tells us, is often as remarkable as the beauty of those is, "of all others, most immersed in matter, which he so happily borrows from his study and hardliest reduced to axiom." of antiquity. But if we have caught the His mind, indeed, was formed and exer- leading principle of his intellectual character, cised in the affairs of the world: his genius we must attribute effects still deeper and was eminently civil. His understanding was more extensive, to his familiarity with the peculiarly fitted for questions of legislation active world. It guarded him against vain and of policy; though his character was not subtlety, and against all speculation that was an instrument well qualified to execute the either visionary or fruitless. It preserved dictates of his reason. The same civil wis-him from the reigning prejudices of contemdom which distinguishes his judgments on plative men, and from undue preference to human affairs, may also be traced through particular parts of knowledge. If he had been his reformation of philosophy. It is a prac-exclusively bred in the cloister or the schools, tical judgment applied to science. What he he might not have had courage enough to effected was reform in the maxims of state, reform their abuses. It seems necessary that -a reform which had always before been he should have been so placed as to look on unsuccessfully pursued in the republic of science in the free spirit of an intelligent letters. It is not derived from metaphysical spectator. Without the pride of professors, reasoning, nor from scientific detail, but from or the bigotry of their followers, he surveyed a species of intellectual prudence, which, from the world the studies which reigned in on the practical ground of failure and dis- the schools; and, trying them by their fruits, appointment in the prevalent modes of pur- he saw that they were barren, and therefore suing knowledge, builds the necessity of pronounced that they were unsound. He alteration, and inculcates the advantage of himself seems, indeed, to have indicated as administering the sciences on other princi- clearly as modesty would allow, in a case ples. It is an error to represent him either that concerned himself, and where he deas imputing fallacy to the syllogistic method, parted from an universal and almost naor as professing his principle of induction to tural sentiment, that he regarded scholastic be a discovery. The rules and forms of ar- seclusion, then more unsocial and rigorous gument will always form an important part than it now can be, as a hindrance in the of the art of logic; and the method of induc- pursuit of knowledge. In one of the noblest tion, which is the art of discovery, was so passages of his writings, the conclusion "of far from being unknown to Aristotle, that it the Interpretation of Nature," he tells us, was often faithfully pursued by that great "That there is no composition of estate or observer. What Bacon aimed at, he accom- society, nor order or quality of persons, which plished; which was, not to discover new have not some point of contrariety towards principles, but to excite a new spirit, and to true knowledge; that monarchies incline render observation and experiment the pre- wits to profit and pleasure; commonwealths dominant characteristics of philosophy. It to glory and vanity; universities to sophistry is for this reason that Bacon could not have and affectation; cloisters to fables and unprobeen the author of a system or the founder fitable subtlety; study at large to variety; of a sect. He did not deliver opinions; he and that it is hard to say whether mixture of taught modes of philosophizing. His early contemplations with an active life, or retiring wholly to contemplations, do disable or hinder the mind more." *Under the same head of Ethics, may be mentioned the small volume to which he has given the title of Essays,'-the best known and most popular of all his works. It is also one of those where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage; the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from the triteness of the subject. It may be read from be ginning to end in a few hours; and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something unobserved before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon's writings, and is only to be accounted for by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, and the sympa thetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties." Encyclopædia Bannica, vol. i. p. 36. But, though he was, thus free from the prejudices of a science, a school or a sect, other prejudices of a lower nature, and belonging only to the inferior class of those who conduct civil affairs, have been ascribed to him by encomiasts as well as by opponents. He has been said to consider the great end of science to be the increase of the outward accommodations and enjoyments of human life: we cannot see any foundation for this charge. In labouring, indeed, to correct the direction of study, and to withdraw it from these unprofitable subtleties, it was neces sary to attract it powerfully towards outward | wise in the administration of learning." Early acts and works. He no doubt duly valued immersed in civil affairs, and deeply imbued "the dignity of this end, the endowment of with their spirit, his mind in this place conman's life with new commodities;" and he templates science only through the analogy strikingly observes, that the most poetical of government, and considers principles of people of the world had admitted the inven- philosophizing as the easiest maxims of potors of the useful and manual arts among licy for the guidance of reason. It seems the highest beings in their beautiful mytho- also, that in describing the objects of a hislogy. Had he lived to the age of Watt and tory of philosophy, and the utility to be deDavy, he would not have been of the vulgar rived from it, he discloses the principle of and contracted mind of those who cease to his own exertions in behalf of knowledge;— admire grand exertions of intellect, because whereby a reform in its method and maxims, they are useful to mankind: but he would justified by the experience of their injurious certainly have considered their great works effects, is conducted with a judgment analorather as tests of the progress of knowledge gous to that civil prudence which guides a than as parts of its highest end. His im- wise lawgiver. If (as may not improperly portant questions to the doctors of his time be concluded from this passage) the reformawere: Is truth ever barren? Are we the tion of science was suggested to Lord Bacon, richer by one poor invention, by reason of all by a review of the history of philosophy, it the learning that hath been these many must be owned, that his outline of that history hundred years?" His judgment, we may has a very important relation to the general also hear from himself:- "Francis Bacon character of his philosophical genius. The thought in this manner. The knowledge smallest circumstances attendant on that outwhereof the world is now possessed, espe-line serve to illustrate the powers and habits cially that of nature, extendeth not to magni- of thought which distinguished its author. It tude and certainty of works." He found is an example of his faculty of anticipating, knowledge barren; he left it fertile. He did not insulated facts or single discoveries, not underrate the utility of particular inven- but (what from its complexity and refinement tions; but it is evident that he valued them seem much more to defy the power of promost, as being themselves among the high- phecy) the tendencies of study, and the est exertions of superior intellect, as being modes of thinking, which were to prevail in monuments of the progress of knowledge,- distant generations, that the parts which he as being the bands of that alliance between had chosen to unfold or enforce in the Latin action and speculation, wherefrom spring an versions, are those which a thinker of the preappeal to experience and utility, checking sent age would deem both most excellent the proneness of the philosopher to extreme and most arduous in a history of philosophy; refinements; while teaching men to revere, "the causes of literary revolutions; the and exciting them to pursue science by these study of contemporary writers, not merely as splendid proofs of its beneficial power. Had the most authentic sources of information, he seen the change in this respect, which, but as enabling the historian to preserve in produced chiefly in his own country by the his own description the peculiar colour of spirit of his philosophy, has made some de- every age, and to recall its literary genius gree of science almost necessary to the sub-from the dead." This outline has the unsistence and fortune of large bodies of men, he would assuredly have regarded it as an additional security for the future growth of the human understanding. He taught, as he tells us, the means, not of the "amplification of the power of one man over his country, nor of the amplification of the power of that country over other nations; but the amplification of the power and kingdom of mankind over the world," "a restitution of man to the sovereignty of nature,"*" and the enlarging the bounds of human empire to the effecting all things possible."-From the enlargement of reason, he did not separate the growth of virtue, for he thought that "truth and goodness were one, differing but as the seal and the print; for truth prints goodness." As civil history teaches statesmen to profit by the faults of their predecessors, he proposes that the history of philosophy should teach, by example, "learned men to become *Of the Interpretation of Nature. Advancement of Learning, book i. common distinction of being at once original and complete. In this province, Bacon had no forerunner; and the most successful follower will be he, who most faithfully observes his precepts. Here, as in every province of knowledge, he concludes his review of the performances and prospects of the human understanding, by considering their subservience to the grand purpose of improving the condition, the faculties, and the nature of man, without which indeed science would be no more than a beautiful ornament, and literature would rank no higher than a liberal amusement. Yet it must be acknowledged, that he rather perceived than felt the connexion of Truth and Good. Whether he lived too early to have sufficient experience of the moral benefit of civilization, or his mind had early acquired too exclusive an interest in science, to look frequently beyond its advancement; or whether the infirmities and calamities of his life had blighted his feelings, and turned away his eyes from the active world;-to whatever cause we may ascribe the defect, certain it is, that his works want one excellence |