Part 3 (2/2)
1.
Among the great precursors of a new order of thought Francis Bacon occupies a unique position. He drew up a definite programme for a ”great Renovation” of knowledge; he is more clearly conscious than his contemporaries of the necessity of breaking with the past and making a completely new start; and his whole method of thought seems intellectually nearer to us than the speculations of a Bruno or a Campanella. Hence it is easy to understand that he is often regarded, especially in his own country, as more than a precursor, as the first philosopher, of the modern age, definitely within its precincts.
[Footnote: German critics have been generally severe on Bacon as deficient in the scientific spirit. Kuno Fischer, Baco van Verulam (1856). Liebig, Ueber Francis Bacon van Verulam und die Methode der Naturforschung (1863). Lange (Geschichte des Materialismus, i. 195) speaks of ”die aberglaubische und eitle Unwissenschaftlichkeit Bacos.”]
It is not indeed a matter of fundamental importance how we cla.s.sify these men who stood on the border of two worlds, but it must be recognised that if in many respects Bacon is in advance of contemporaries who cannot be dissociated from the Renaissance, in other respects, such as belief in astrology and dreams, he stands on the same ground, and in one essential point--which might almost be taken as the test of mental progress at this period--Bruno and Campanella have outstripped him. For him Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo worked in vain; he obstinately adhered to the old geocentric system.
It must also be remembered that the principle which he laid down in his ambitious programme for the reform of science--that experiment is the key for discovering the secrets of nature--was not a new revelation. We need not dwell on the fact that he had been antic.i.p.ated by Roger Bacon; for the ideas of that wonderful thinker had fallen dead in an age which was not ripe for them. But the direct interrogation of nature was already recognised both in practice and in theory in the sixteenth century. What Bacon did was to insist upon the principle more strongly and explicitly, and to formulate it more precisely. He clarified and explained the progressive ideas which inspired the scientific thought of the last period of the European Renaissance, from which he cannot, I think, be dissociated.
But in clearing up and defining these progressive ideas, he made a contribution to the development of human thought which had far-reaching importance and has a special significance for our present subject. In the hopes of a steady increase of knowledge, based on the application of new methods, he had been antic.i.p.ated by Roger Bacon, and further back by Seneca. But with Francis Bacon this idea of the augmentation of knowledge has an entirely new value. For Seneca the exploration of nature was a means of escaping from the sordid miseries of life. For the friar of Oxford the princ.i.p.al use of increasing knowledge was to prepare for the coming of Antichrist. Francis Bacon sounded the modern note; for him the end of knowledge is utility. [Footnote; The pa.s.sages specially referred to are: De Aug. Sc. vii. i; Nov. Org. i. 81 and 3.]
2.
The principle that the proper aim of knowledge is the amelioration of human life, to increase men's happiness and mitigate their sufferings--commodis humanis inservire--was the guiding star of Bacon in all his intellectual labour. He declared the advancement of ”the happiness of mankind” to be the direct purpose of the works he had written or designed. He considered that all his predecessors had gone wrong because they did not apprehend that the finis scientarum, the real and legitimate goal of the sciences, is ”the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches”; and he made this the test for defining the comparative values of the various branches of knowledge.
The true object, therefore, of the investigation of nature is not, as the Greek philosophers held, speculative satisfaction, but to establish the reign of man over nature; and this Bacon judged to be attainable, provided new methods of attacking the problems were introduced. Whatever may be thought of his daring act in bringing natural science down from the clouds and a.s.signing to her the function of ministering to the material convenience and comfort of man, we may criticise Bacon for his doctrine that every branch of science should be pursued with a single eye towards practical use. Mathematics, he thought, should conduct herself as a humble, if necessary, handmaid, without any aspirations of her own. But it is not thus that the great progress in man's command over nature since Bacon's age has been effected. Many of the most valuable and surprising things which science has succeeded in doing for civilisation would never have been performed if each branch of knowledge were not guided by its own independent ideal of speculative completeness. [Footnote: This was to be well explained by Fontenelle, Preface sur l'utilite des mathematiques, in Oeuvres (ed. 1729), iii, I sqq.] But this does not invalidate Bacon's pragmatic principle, or diminish the importance of the fact that in laying down the utilitarian view of knowledge he contributed to the creation of a new mental atmosphere in which the theory of Progress was afterwards to develop.
3.
Bacon's respect for the ancients and his familiarity with their writings are apparent on almost every page he wrote. Yet it was one of his princ.i.p.al endeavours to shake off the yoke of their authority, which he recognised to be a fatal obstacle to the advancement of science. ”Truth is not to be sought in the good fortune of any particular conjuncture of time”; its attainment depends on experience, and how limited was theirs.
In their age ”the knowledge both of time and of the world was confined and meagre; they had not a thousand years of history worthy of that name, but mere fables and ancient traditions; they were not acquainted with but a small portion of the regions and countries of the world.”
[Footnote: Nov. Org. i. 84; 56, 72, 73, 74.] In all their systems and scientific speculation ”there is hardly one single experiment that has a tendency to a.s.sist mankind.” Their theories were founded on opinion, and therefore science has remained stationary for the last two thousand years; whereas mechanical arts, which are founded on nature and experience, grow and increase.
In this connection, Bacon points out that the word ”antiquity” is misleading, and makes a remark which will frequently recur in writers of the following generations. Antiquitas seculi iuventus mundi; what we call antiquity and are accustomed to revere as such was the youth of the world. But it is the old age and increasing years of the world--the time in which we are now living--that deserves in truth to be called antiquity. We are really the ancients, the Greeks and Romans were younger than we, in respect to the age of the world. And as we look to an old man for greater knowledge of the world than from a young man, so we have good reason to expect far greater things from our own age than from antiquity, because in the meantime the stock of knowledge has been increased by an endless number of observations and experiments. Time is the great discoverer, and truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
Take the three inventions which were unknown to the ancients-printing, gunpowder, and the compa.s.s. These ”have changed the appearance and state of the whole world; first in literature, then in warfare, and lastly in navigation; and innumerable changes have been thence derived, so that no empire, sect, or star appears to have exercised a greater power or influence on human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.”
[Footnote: Nov. Org. 129. We have seen that these three inventions had already been cla.s.sed together as outstanding by Cardan and Le Roy. They also appear in Campanella. Bodin, as we saw, included them in a longer list.] It was perhaps the results of navigation and the exploration of unknown lands that impressed Bacon more than all, as they had impressed Bodin. Let me quote one pa.s.sage.
”It may truly be affirmed to the honour of these times, and in a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building of the world had never through-lights made in it till the age of us and our fathers.
For although they [the ancients] had knowledge of the antipodes... yet that mought be by demonstration, and not in fact; and if by travel, it requireth the voyage but of half the earth. But to circle the earth, as the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor enterprised till these later times: and therefore these times may justly bear in their word... plus ultra in precedence of the ancient non ultra.... And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant also an expectation of the further proficience and augmentation of all sciences, because it may seem that they are ordained by G.o.d to be coevals, that is, to meet in one age. For so the prophet Daniel, speaking of the latter times foretelleth, Plurimi pertransibunt, et multiplex erit scientia: as if the openness and through-pa.s.sage of the world and the increase of knowledge were appointed to be in the same ages; as we see it is already performed in great part: the learning of these later times not much giving place to the former two periods or returns of learning, the one of the Grecians, the other of the Romans.” [Footnote: Advancement of Learning, ii. 13, 14.]
In all this we have a definite recognition of the fact that knowledge progresses. Bacon did not come into close quarters with the history of civilisation, but he has thrown out some observations which amount to a rough synthesis. [Footnote: Advancement, ii. 1, 6; Nov. Org. i. 78, 79, 85.] Like Bodin, he divided, history into three periods--(1) the antiquities of the world; (2) the middle part of time which comprised two sections, the Greek and the Roman; (3) ”modern history,” which included what we now call the Middle Ages. In this sequence three particular epochs stand out as fertile in science and favourable to progress--the Greek, the Roman, and our own--”and scarcely two centuries can with justice be a.s.signed to each.” The other periods of time are deserts, so far as philosophy and science are concerned. Rome and Greece are ”two exemplar States of the world for arms, learning, moral virtue, policy, and laws.” But even in those two great epochs little progress was made in natural philosophy. For in Greece moral and political speculation absorbed men's minds; in Rome, meditation and labour were wasted on moral philosophy, and the greatest intellects were devoted to civil affairs. Afterwards, in the third period, the study of theology was the chief occupation of the Western European nations. It was actually in the earliest period that the most useful discoveries for the comfort of human life were made, ”so that, to say the truth, when contemplation and doctrinal science began, the discovery of useful works ceased.”
So much for the past history of mankind, during which many things conspired to make progress in the subjugation of nature slow, fitful, and fortuitous. What of the future? Bacon's answer is: if the errors of the past are understood and avoided there is every hope of steady progress in the modern age.
But it might be asked. Is there not something in the const.i.tution of things which determines epochs of stagnation and vigour, some force against which man's understanding and will are impotent? Is it not true that in the revolutions of ages there are floods and ebbs of the sciences, which flourish now and then decline, and that when they have reached a certain point they can proceed no further? This doctrine of Returns or ricorsi [Footnote: Bodin's conversiones.] is denounced by Bacon as the greatest obstacle to the advancement of knowledge, creating, as it does, diffidence or despair. He does not formally refute it, but he marshals the reasons for an optimistic view, and these reasons supply the disproof The facts on which the fatalistic doctrine of Returns is based can be explained without resorting to any mysterious law. [Footnote: Nov. Org. i. 92 sqq.] Progress has not been steady or continuous on account of the prejudices and errors which hindered men from setting to work in the right way. The difficulties in advancing did not arise from things which are not in our power; they were due to the human understanding, which wasted time and labour on improper objects.
”In proportion as the errors which have been committed impeded the past, so do they afford reason to hope for the future.”
4.
But will the new period of advance, which Bacon expected and strove to secure, be of indefinite duration? He does not consider the question.
His view that he lived in the old age of the world implies that he did not antic.i.p.ate a vast tract of time before the end of mankind's career on earth. And an orthodox Christian of that time could hardly be expected to predict. The impression we get is that, in his sanguine enthusiasm, he imagined that a ”prudent interrogation” of nature could extort all her secrets in a few generations. As a reformer he was so engaged in the immediate prospect of results that his imagination did not turn to the possibilities of a remoter future, though these would logically follow from his recognition of ”the inseparable propriety of time which is ever more and more to disclose truth.” He hopes everything from his own age in which learning has made her third visitation to the world, a period which he is persuaded will far surpa.s.s that of Grecian and Roman learning. [Footnote: Advancement, ii. 24.] If he could have revisited England in 1700 and surveyed what science had performed since his death his hopes might have been more than satisfied.
But, animated though he was with the progressive spirit, as Leonardo da Vinci had been before him, all that he says of the prospects of an increase of knowledge fails to amount to the theory of Progress. He prepares the way, he leads up to it; but his conception of his own time as the old age of humanity excludes the conception of an indefinite advance in the future, which is essential if the theory is to have significance and value. And in regard to progress in the past, though he is clearer and more emphatic than Bodin, he hardly adds anything to what Bodin had observed. The novelty of his view lies not in his recognition of the advance of knowledge and its power to advance still further, but in the purpose which he a.s.signed to it. [Footnote: Campanella held its purpose to be the contemplation of the wisdom of G.o.d; cp., for instance, De sensu rerum, Bk. iv. epilogus, where the world is described as statua Dei altissimi (p. 370; ed. 1620).] The end of the sciences is their usefulness to the human race. To increase knowledge is to extend the dominion of man over nature, and so to increase his comfort and happiness, so far as these depend on external circ.u.mstances. To Plato or Seneca, or to a Christian dreaming of the City of G.o.d, this doctrine would seem material and trivial; and its announcement was revolutionary: for it implied that happiness on earth was an end to be pursued for its own sake, and to be secured by co-operation for mankind at large. This idea is an axiom which any general doctrine of Progress must presuppose; and it forms Bacon's great contribution to the group of ideas which rendered possible the subsequent rise of that doctrine.
Finally, we must remember that by Bacon, as by most of his Elizabethan contemporaries, the doctrine of an active intervening Providence, the Providence of Augustine, was taken as a matter of course, and governed more or less their conceptions of the history of civilisation. But, I think, we may say that Bacon, while he formally acknowledged it, did not press it or emphasise it. [Footnote: See Advancement, iii. II. On the influence of the doctrine on historical writing in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century see Firth, Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World (Proc. of British Academy, vol. viii., 1919), p.
8.]
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