only arrange the things with which he deals in the order and form which Nature requires. All the rest comes from her only; the conditions she requires having been fulfilled, she produces new phenomena according to the laws of her own action. Thus the two words minister and interpres refer respectively to works to power and knowledge- the theory of both being compressed into a single phrase. The third and fourth aphorisms are developments of the first; the second relating not to the theory of knowledge, but to the necessity of providing helps for the understanding.

and contemplation substance of Bacon's

Then follow (5-10.) reflections on the sterility of the existing sciences, and (11-17.) remarks on the inutility of logic. In (14.) Bacon asserts that everything must depend on a just method of induction. From (18.) to (37.) he contrasts the only two ways in which knowledge can be sought for; namely anticipations of Nature and the interpretation of Nature. In the former method men pass at once from particulars to the highest generalities, and thence deduce all intermediate propositions; in the latter they rise by gradual induction and successively, from particulars to axioms of the lowest generality, then to intermediate axioms, and so ultimately to the highest. And this is the true way, but as yet untried.

Then from (38.) to (68.) Bacon developes the doctrine of idols. It is to be remarked that he uses the word idolon in antithesis to idea, the first place where it occurs being the twenty-third aphorism. "Non leve quiddam interest," it is there said, "inter humanæ mentis idola et divinæ mentis ideas." He nowhere refers to the common meaning of the word,

namely the image of a false god. Idols are with him. “placita quædam inania," or more generally, the false notions which have taken possession of men's minds. The doctrine of idols stands [he says] in the same relation to the interpretation of Nature, as the doctrine of fallacies to ordinary logic.

Of idols Bacon enumerates four kinds, the idols of the tribe, of the cave, of the market-place, and of the theatre; and it has been supposed that this classification is borrowed from Roger Bacon, who in the beginning of the Opus Majus speaks of four hindrances whereby men are kept back from the attainment of true knowledge. But this supposition is for several reasons improbable. The Opus Majus was not printed until the eighteenth century, and it is unlikely that Francis Bacon would have taken the trouble of reading it, or any part of it, in manuscript. In the first place there is no evidence in any part of his works of this kind of research, and in the second he had no high opinion of his namesake, of whom he has spoken with far less respect than he deserves. The only work of Roger Bacon's which there is any good reason for believing that he was acquainted with is a tract on the art of prolonging life, which was published at Paris in 1542, and of which an English translation appeared in 1617. The general resem

1 I can hardly think that he would have omitted to look into a work like the Opus Majus, if he had had the opportunity. But it is very probable that no copy of it was procurable; possible that he did not even know of its existence. The manner in which he speaks of Roger Bacon in the Temporis Partus Masculus, as belonging to the "utile genus of experimentalists, "qui de theoriis non admodum soliciti mechanicâ quâdam subtilitate rerum inventarum extensiones prehendunt," seems rather to imply that he knew of him at that time chiefly by his reputation for mechanical inventions. J. S.

blance between the spirit in which the two Bacons speak of science and of its improvement is, notwithstanding what has sometimes been said, but slight. Both no doubt complain that sufficient attention has not been paid to observation and experiment, but that is all; and these complaints may be found in the writings of many other men, especially in the time of Francis Bacon. Nothing is more clear than that the essential doctrines of his philosophy

among which that of idols is to be reckoned are, so far as he was aware, altogether his own. There is moreover but little analogy between his idols and his namesake's hindrances to knowledge. The principle of classification is altogether different, and the notion of a real connexion between the two was probably suggested simply by there being the same number of idols as of hindrances. It is therefore well to remark that in the early form of the doctrine of idols there were only three. In the Partis secunda Delineatio the idols wherewith the mind is beset are said to be of three kinds they either are inherent and innate or adscititious; and if the latter, arise either from received opinions in philosophy or from wrong principles of demonstration. This classification occurs also in Valerius Terminus.2

:

1 That the two may be the more conveniently compared, I have quoted Roger Bacon's exposition of his "offendicula," in a note upon the 39th aphorism, in which the names of the four "Idols" first occur. How slight the resemblance is between the two may be ascertained by a very simple test. If you are already acquainted with Francis Bacon's classification, try to assign each of the "offendicula" to its proper class. If not, try by the help of Roger's classification to find out Francis's.-J. S.

2 Not in Valerius Terminus. It occurs in the Distributio Operis, and may be traced though less distinctly in the Advancement and the De Augmentis.

See Note C. at the end. J. S.

The first of these three classes corresponds to the first and second of those spoken of in the Novum Organum. The idols of the tribe are those which belong, as Aristotle might have said, to the human mind as it is human, the erroneous tendencies common more or less to all mankind. The idols of the cave arise from each man's mental constitution: the metaphor being suggested by a passage in the [opening of the seventh book of Plato's Republic.]1 Both classes of extraneous idols mentioned in the Partis secundæ Delineatio are included in the idola theatri, and the idola fori correspond to nothing in the earlier classification. They also are extraneous idols, but result neither from received opinions nor erroneous forms of demonstration, but from the influence which words of necessity exert. They are called idols of the market-place because they are caused by the daily intercourse of common life. "Verba," remarks Bacon, "ex captu vulgi imponuntur."

It is only when we compare the later with the earlier form of the doctrine of idols that we perceive the principle of classification which Bacon was guided by, namely the division of idols according as they come from the mind itself or from without. In the Novum Organum two belong to the former class and two to

1 Mr. Ellis had written "in the

of Aristotle." But the words of the De Augmentis (v. 4.) (“ de specu Platonis ") prove that it was the passage in Plato which suggested the metaphor.-J. S.

2 i. e. in the classification adopted in the Partis secundæ Delineatio; for they correspond exactly with the third kind of fallacies or false appearances mentioned in the Advancement, and with the idols of the palace in Valerius Terminus. And I think they were meant to be included among the "Inhærentia et Innata" of the Delineatio. See Note C.-J. S.

8 Rather, I think, as they are separable or inseparable from our nature and condition in life. See Note C.-J. S.

the latter, so that the members of the classification are better balanced than in the previous arrangement in both perhaps we perceive a trace of the dichotomizing principle of Ramus, one of the seeming novelties which he succeeded in making popular.2 After enumerating the four kinds of idols, Bacon gives instances of each (45—67.); and speaking in (62.) of idols of the theatre, introduces a triple classification of false philosophies, to which he seems to have attached much importance, as we find it referred to in many parts of his writings. False philosophy is sophistical, empirical, or superstitious; sophistical, when it consists of dialectic subtleties built upon no better foundation than common notions and every-day observation; empirical, when it is educed out of a few experiments, however accurately examined; and superstitious, when theological traditions are made its basis. In the Cogitata et Visa he compares the rational philosophers (that is, those whose system is sophistical, the name implying that they trust too much to reason and despise observation) to spiders whose webs are spun out of their own bodies, and the empirics to the ant which simply lays up its store and uses it. Whereas the true way is that of the bee, which gathers its materials from the flowers of the field and of the garden, and then, ex propriâ facultate, elaborates and transforms them. The third kind of

1 Compare the Distributio Operis, where the classification is retained, with the Novum Organum, where it is not alluded to, and I think it will be seen that Bacon did not intend to balance the members in this way. See Note C. at the end. J. S.

2 Bacon alludes to Ramus in the De Augmentis vi. 2., "De unicâ methodo et dichotomiis perpetuis nil attinet dicere. Fuit enim nubecula quædam doctrinæ quæ cito transiit: res certe simul et scientiis damnosissima," &c. 8 In the Advancement of Learning and the De Augmentis, the schoolmen