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<v7O THE 1. E A DE R. [No. 443, Septembe...
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•Critics are not the legislators, but th...
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THE WORKS OP FRANCIS BACON. The Worts qf...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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<V7o The 1. E A De R. [No. 443, Septembe...
< v THE 1 . E A DE R . [ No . 443 , September 18 , 1858 .
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•Critics Are Not The Legislators, But Th...
• Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try ; to enforce them . *—Edinburgh Review . - — . ?¦ '
The Works Op Francis Bacon. The Worts Qf...
THE WORKS OP FRANCIS BACON . The Worts qf Francis Bacon . Collected and edited by Jtfessrs . Spedding , Leslie Ellis , and Heath , of Trinity College , Cambridge . Tol . V . » being the second volume of the Translations of the Philosop hical Works . . Longman and Co . The filial piety of present denizens of Trinity has ¦ been fully vindicated in the progress and completion of this Magnum Opus . It is well that he who ,
when still an under-graduate of his college , had ¦ conceived the plan of the Novum Organum , and had laid down the landmarks of future progressive improvement , should in these latter days of comment - and criticism , rather than of the fertility of new growth , receive at the hands of academic deseend--ants , breathing so heartily his own spirit of welded patience and enthusiasm , such careful exposition . and such ample rendering .
The volume before us , entirely composed of new translations of the philosophical works , gives us , in English , all that was wanting to comple the Instautrdtio Magna , and also the several kindred treatises not explicitly included in its plan , but each fitting into its own place . There are the last three books of the De Augmentis , and the various tractates on Natural and Experimental History . One such work , its enterprise so hazardous , its necessary labours so great , is a standing protest against the calumny of some , that " parlour libraries" and " readable books "
: have frittered away the taste of the age , and , to use the witty ; taunt applied by Dr . Johnson to Scotland , j j' ^ iave secured to every man a mouthful , but to none a bellyful , of learning ; It were unfair to content -ourselves with recording the meed of praise due to the editors for assiduity and accuracy , and to forget the gratitude which the public owe to the Messrs . Longman , and the other fourteen publishing firms Tvhose names are associated together on the titlepage , for their share of the enterprise , without which these five handsome and bulky tomes would
not have lain on our tables . It may seem that to reviewers the critical treatment of the yearly litter of new volumes is more welcome than the renewed survey of old books . But your well-thumbed , perhaps tear-stained , Shakspeare or Burns , on the shelf nearest you band when in your study-chair , comes fVesU «* « ufl really newer to you than the last novel from Bentjey or " Quarterly" from Albemarle-street All good writers become new as they become old . Jt is better to grasp the oft-held hand of a friend than stiffly to bow to an acquaintance . Bacon has a wider and deeper sway in every cultivated home and head in England than when Addison wrote of him in the Spectator , or when , in the childhood of reviewing Kenrick and Smollett told their readers in the
Oriiical and the Monthly , what wa 3 the quality of P < jdsley and Jacob Tonson * s literary wares , It is twenty-seven years since Bacon last appeared before us in bis undiminiahed proportions , reintroduced hj > Basil Montagu . No apology is required for a Cew more words on so rich a theme , Each pne of us reaps the benefit of what Bacon wrote , qveiry time we journey by vail , or speak aud listen along a thousand miles of wire . But few nndlerstand exactly what ho did say and do . I ^ ij ^ any /* BirWiUiftm Hamilton used to say , " wear 3 &^ p 6 n * s'Jivery who were never in his service . " He hm paid the penalty of greatness . Now , he has
fceen . bespattered with ignorant and indiscnniinatjing 1 ttraisoi 1 ! Si ^ in ^ a ~ wiseiaore has eno that , heonly taught what every child had been practising since Paradise . One class have said that he was chronologically the first philosopher . Another have proclaimed that he was the more explainer and grammarian of praotice whioH must by its nature be universal . To the former it would bo enough to say that Bacpn himself reiterates his reverence for those whom they dostroy to make room for his throne . To the latter an easy and everlostiag dilemma is equally applicable . They
must carry the same disparagement to the Stagyrite , for he discovered , not invented , his categories and syllogism . And youths must not be taught the distinction between , and the respective uses of , Barbara and Celarent ; because they will reason in them without the teaching . And because a child says to his playfellow , " Do you love me ? " he requires not to be taught the grammar rule which he imitatively practises . Every time a man anticipated cold by putting on an additional garment , or a child recoiled from fire because he had been burned * he proved himself an inductive philosopher . And what more was Bacon ? He didn't invent induction !
Bacon invented or discovered induction no more than Aristotle did deduction . Both were made when man was made . But they expounded , systematised , and regulated the methods of acquiring knowledge respectively identified with their names . What the categories and syllogism and general logical rules of the one did lor deduction , Bacon ' s twentv-eight instantiee did for induction . The logic of Aristotle did for abstract inquiry what the second book ; of the Novum Organum did for practical research and the application of its results to human use and advantage . Bacon required proof before
belief . He refused to take either principles or 1 acts upon trust . And it was Bacon ' s formula that the learner adopted—leading him ultimately to new fields of discovery , or enabling him by means of the New , System to stand last by old truths , or to reject them as not resting on a sound or sufficient , basis . Bacon not only inculcated the necessity of consulting experience and devising experiment ; but he showed under what necessary and immutable conditions experience can be rightly read , and experiment properly deduced from . But this is Bacon ' s smallest merit ; that chiefly consisted , not in his teaching tie means of inquiry , but in showing that the journey along his road
would lead to a happy goal . Liike isunyan s iivangelist , he not only gives to his pilgrim a chart and guide for the way , Hbut takes him to the summit of the Delectable Mountain of Promise , and points him to the shining battlements of the Celestial City to which he is to fight his way . He gives his disciple not only the Novum Organum as a weapon , but in the " New Atlantis "he shows him the certainty of victory . He awakes hope while he enkindles energy . He shows him that he must toil along the dusty earth ; but he convinces him that the toil some journey is the alone condition of the fruition of success . All Bacon ' s p hilosophy was a contradiction of the sombre , necessitarian dogma ,
Ad victum quoo flagitat usua Omnia jam ferine mortalibu ? case paruta . The means only he said were prepared , and he encouraged men to their use . We may startle pejtehtsTjy our audacity , but we believe it by no means difficult to show that ancient philosophy had no eye to the progressive development of general humanity . Goethe , the most pagan of the moderns , a very Olympian deity , in coldest , though purest and most lambent marble , has said , " The end of study is not knowledge , but culture . " This we believe to be axiomaticaily true of man the
citer operan ad sublevanda vitse humanm iuconimoda , " with no aflcctation of modesty ( the most despicable of vanities ) he just as ' plainly says " Finis scientiarum a neminc adhuc positus cst . '' There was no unsupported assumption here . Only grant that Baeou did regard the right end , and you . cannot deny that it has not been kept in . view by philosophers before . Seneca ( and he only expresses the general voice of the ancient and mediaeval schools ) says , " Non cst ( philosophia ) , inquam , instrumentorum ad usus necessarios opifex . " Seneca advocated the study of natural philosophy , with a
strong reservation , not for its own sake , but as a means of clearing the eye which should be calmly fixed upon the mysteries of the universe . Bacon just reversed this . He advised the study of abstract science , in order to the attainment of results which would increase the comforts of mankind . Plato advocated the study of arithmetic , as a means to the understanding of the recondite properties of numbers , and so to lift the mind . from sublunary objects . Bacon advocated the study of arithmetic , iii order that , men might count and calculate .
An old philosopher said that philosophy was the " science of causes . " So , too , said Bacon , but in a different sense . The one advocated the . discovery of the causes of ' existing phenomena . That end once gained , and gain it no one ever did , his work was hypothe'tically done . Bacou advocated the beating about for known effects which should serve as adequate causes , when guided and controlled by invention and sagacity , of greater and unknown results . The' .. world hud been told that
philosophy was the " inediciua vita ; . " Bui the exposition of that was that we were to be medicated by the flimsy pretence of not feeling life's stings . Bacon ' s " medicnia vita ; " was to put on your glove and pull the stings of your assailants out . The one taught to suffer , the other to repel , but to suffer with greater patience than placid Stoic was capable of , till you had hit upon the means to gain your end . For you will always suffer with least impatience if you believe a way of relief is yqt to . be found , though you have not hit upon it . If this was Bacon ' s relation to his past ,, . what has it been , to his future — our past . He . reunited in welcome wedlock . - the divorced opo « aco IVork and Thought . lie led the philosopher as a student to the bench of the mechanic , and showed 1
the mechanicthat the teachings of philosophy were no longer proud—nay , that lie himself was an unconscious philosophise !* . A new dignity was shed over every operative act . The boy stoker , lazy and yet quick-witted , who laid the foundation for the safety-valve , was , in kind , just as Baconian as Locke or Cuvicr . Bacon reunited mankind—plujo - sonhy , and those on , whom philosophers hardly deigned to cast an eye . lie made the empty rr .- ^ iwlniii- nP cnionnn urnniififLl . and lie infused into grandeur of science practicalana nc iuiusl-u . mw
, every mechanical avocation new and uuiniagincu glories . ' Were we asked to single out from philosophers ' since his time his true descendants , we should first , reply that we should not look for them among philosophers at all . It' confined within H » k range , we should pass over Locke , and Comhllac , ana Cousin , and select , using Bacon ' s test of " IruU , such men as Combe , as representing the class ww have walked in some one of the Ijyways ol tue nniinl . rv wlimll onfilied UI ) to BaCOll ' s PlSITull V 1 CW J
individual . But if man only ; gains knowledge that he himself may gain higher culture , each generation must begin where the last did . To effect this , nature must be reorganised . The father must -transmit his knowledge ,, as , the instrument of his son ' s culture and the minister of his comfort , just , as really as he must transmit to him hi 3 life ' s blood . 11 ns Bacon clearly saw , and accordingly he drow men ' s errant minds from the questions of the schools , good in their own place , and directed 1 hem to the necessities of life . He enticed disciples from the Portico
and Conitc , as representing that small , easilyreckoned number who have themselves traversed his futurity , uml now point out a further land oi promise , u New Atlantis . But the "Walls , btcjhcnsoiis , Morses , and Smcllics arc his linuuL oU-8 priug—the children of whom lie would bo most glad . c i We havo said nothing of Buoou the man . feuu is it to remember llmL just , liislury must cliiss him \ yitu thoso whom lie so well describes ;—•• ' Scienliu tansci
and the Garden , and carried them to the workshops of men and the wondrous laboratories of God . His aim , at once the noblest and the humblest , was " illustrare commoda vitro . " "It is impossible , " he says , " to advance with any profit in the race , ^ lrcwtfferpoin'Hro '' be' -aiy <) ained--ie ^ not ^ istiuatXyuaAi tormined . Iii soienoo , the true end is to onrioli human life with new discoveries and wealth . " Many a fair flower did Socrates and Sonooa pluck , and they shed their perfumes over the minds of men . But Bacon ' s uvowed end was tho culling and
. quam augoli aluti , oupiditatibus veto tunquaiu - pentea qui hunii replant . " . Lord Brougham snid , thirty years ago , when tuo schoolmaster wus first abroad , t . hat he would havo every working mim in England reading Bucon cio long . Cobbctt retorted , that every mini must oo fli-at eatin g buoon . lu spite of I ho sneer him i <> ° ffiS ^ of Useful Knowledge published mi uljru «»; b «" ; tmd exposition of tlio Noouin Orfftumui . >\ ° »*} M y that nothing but tho judicious following ol l }^ ( ; - " amplo , roiuaiiia tocimblo the oilil . or .-r ol t itau . volumes to oomploto and oonsunnnuto thuii ;; worK # We two oonlldont that liiioou ' w workn , il » l » l || " " priuto selection wore madeuiul ju ( liou > u « iinno' »| 'lu " givon , would l ) o woloomo udditiona to tho shelves u * many a humble worker .
treasuring of " ftuit . " Wo are defending Baoon with lus own weapons . His own reiterated words prove a thorough oonsciousness of his position . While ho states his end to be . ' comr aodis humanis iusorviro , " and " oflloa-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 18, 1858, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18091858/page/18/
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