PREFATORY NOTE. BACON, being the first after the close of the middle ages to give a new direction as well as a new aim to speculative research, was as much a critic of old as a promoter of new methods; and it seems not inappropriate to preface a survey of his system by a glance at the preparatory work of his predecessors. In the first part of the present volume, I am indebted equally for detail and general suggestion to the comprehensive works of Dr Whewell, the History of the Inductive Sciences' and the 'Philosophy of Induction.' I also acknowledge my obligations to the Essays prefixed to Professor Jowett's translations of Plato's Dialogues, especially that which introduces the 'Timæus.' My authorities for the fragmentary references alone here possible to the influence of the Arabians on European thought are, besides Whewell, M. Renan's 'Averroès et l'Averroïsme,' and the History of Philosophy,' by George H. Lewes. As regards the Mystics and Alchemists, I have principally relied on Vaughan's 'Hours with the Mystics,' the Essays of the late Dr Samuel Brown, and the recondite pamphlets of Professor John Ferguson. For a general view of the relation of early Science, History, and Literature, every writer will confess himself a grateful student of Hallam's 'Middle Ages' and 'Literature of Europe.' On questions of date and of spelling I have constantly consulted the French Biographie Générale,' and the Dictionnaire des Sciences,' Hachette, 1844-1852.1 As an interpretation of Bacon's own Philosophy, I have found the critical notes of Mr Robert Ellis to exceed all others in thoroughness and insight-an opinion which, if we may argue from their following in his track, his successors in commentary seem to share. I must also refer to the clear contrasts of old and new methods in the work of Kuno Fischer; to the brilliant summary of M. de Rémusat, for its estimate of the after influences of the Baconian mode of thought; and to Mr Benn for a remarkable appreciation of the influence still exerted over the mind of Bacon by that of Aristotle. 1 In the spelling of Arabian names I have followed these authorities in giving them as they are best known to general readers, the more confidently as there is often a confusing variance in the use of these names by Arabic scholars-e. g., M. Renan in p. 55 of his book refers to Algazel as Algazali, while in p. 73 and elsewhere the same philosopher appears as Gazali. THE mass of criticism, English, German, and French, accumulated about the Baconian Philosophy, still leaves room for difference of opinion regarding its degree of inaccuracy in detail and failure in result: there is no room for difference as to its design, which was to explore the Universe, and, under reverence for the mysteries of Faith, to make men its masters. The popular view of the subject is condensed in Lord Macaulay's brilliant and shallow review, of which the following is the gist: Bacon was neither a philosopher nor a logician, but a practical reformer. Unlike his predecessors-who wasted their dialectic on labours like those spent on P.-XIV. A |
