University of Pennsylvania Press

Bacon and "Knowledge Broken": An Answer to Michael Hattaway
Author(s): Mary Horton

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1982), pp. 487-504
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709435 .
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BACON AND "KNOWLEDGE BROKEN":
AN ANSWER TO MICHAEL HATTAWAY
BY MARY HORTON
I. INTRODUCTION.-Michael
Hattaway's paper'
tries to establish a
reputation
for Bacon that is neither the traditional one of the
pragmatic,
utilitarian,
technocrat
(the
first 'modern
man')
nor
entirely
that of the more
recent
image
of Bacon the
alchemist, mystic,
and
'magician' (the
last 'me-
dieval
man').
Instead he
presents
a
picture
of Bacon as a thinker in
transition-forward
looking
as a man of
letters,
but conservative as a man of
science
struggling (and,
to
Hattaway, unsuccessfully struggling) against
the
limitations of
thought
and
language
that were his renaissance
heritage.
The
thesis of this
paper
is that
Hattaway
was both
right
and
wrong.
To consider
Bacon as a transitional thinker
provides
a model which has far more
utility
in the
understanding
of his
writings
than either of the two earlier
interpreta-
tions. To consider Bacon as unsuccessful is to make oneself blind to that
understanding.
To
put
the
point
more
precisely, Hattaway argues
that where Bacon is
'successful'-where he
stumblingly
and
intuitively prefigures
modern
thinking-he
is successful in
spite
of himself:
When Bacon is
complete
he is
dreary:
his Histories are a
desperate attempt
to list all
particulars
and eschew the creative
hypothesis,
the
breaking
of
knowledge,
the
leap
to the
theory, analogous
to the act of
faith,
which he
seems to have
feared,
but the
recognition
of which was one of his achieve-
ments.
(197)
It is
only
when Bacon is
"incomplete" (183f),
when he
recognizes
the limits
of method and
opens
his mind to wonder and to the invitation to
inquire
further
(184)
that he is the
precursor
of modern creative
inquiry.
Hattaway's argument
is that Bacon is not
truly
a modern thinker because
his work is "informed
by metaphysical paradigms" (183)-that is,
he is not
"scientific"
enough.
On the other
hand,
his method and his use of it are
pedantic
and mechanical-in this sense he is too "scientific."
Caught
in such
an
argument,
the
only way
out for Bacon is to succeed
by failing
and in the
process
demonstrate what
Hattaway
calls "the limits for scientific method."
The
charges
of
"infallibility"
and
"completeness" against
Bacon's method
are familiar ones and I have defended Bacon elsewhere.2 The
charge
of
"metaphysical thinking'"
will be
developed
here.
There are three
aspects
of
"metaphysical thinking" according
to Hatta-
' M.
Hattaway,
"Bacon and
'Knowledge
Broken': Limits for Scientific Method,"
Journal
of
the
History of
Ideas,
39
(April-June 1978),
183-197.
2
M.
Horton,
"In Defence of Francis Bacon. A Criticism of the Critics of the
Inductive Method," Studies in the
History
and
Philosophy of
Science,
4:3
(1973).
487
Copyright July
1982
by
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF
IDEAS,
INC.
488 MARY HORTON
way.
The first concerns Bacon's method itself.
Hattaway argues
that
Bacon's
thinking
is dominated
by
the
concept
of an
underlying
or
"primary"
philosophy (philosophia prima):
"A kind of divine
logos,
where there is little
distinction between
body
and method of
knowledge."
:
He demonstrates this
link between
body
and method
by arguing
that Bacon's
concept
of scientific
law was
fundamentally
Aristotelian and consisted of an
amalgam
of formal
and final causes between which Bacon saw little difference. Given this blur-
ring
of
distinctions, Hattaway
claims that Bacon's notion of a scientific law
was
"prescriptive
rather than
descriptive" (ibid.).
The second
aspect
of
"metaphysical thinking"
is
closely
linked to the
first but shows a
basically religious
mode of
thought.
From
being prescriptive
in the Aristotelian sense of
entelechy,
laws become divine commandments
from God.
Finally, Hattaway argues,
to Bacon
"knowledge
of law comes not
with observation but with revelation"
(188).
Aristotle's
concept
of intellec-
tual intuition as
part
of the inductive
process
has been
replaced by
a belief
in
religious
illumination of nature's miracles. One
begins
to wonder
why
Bacon wrote Novum
Organum
at
all,
but
Hattaway argues
that Bacon saw
his method as a
spiritual
exercise, preparing
the mind for the final illumina-
tion
(ibid.).
The third
charge
of
"metaphysical thinking"
is that Bacon used the
magical
mode of
thought
and introduced
superstitious
notions derived from
alchemical and cabbalistic sources.
Underlying
this eclecticism was a belief
in
explanation
in terms of
indwelling spirits.
This animism resulted in a
fundamental confusion in Bacon's
thinking,
a confusion which
Hattaway
alleges
"affected the whole aim of his work"
(ibid., 190).
Finally, although quotations
show that Bacon
consistently
tried to
sep-
arate the
inquiry
into natural as
opposed
to
supernatural
causes,
this evi-
dence of manifest intention is not considered as
strong
as the more subtle and
latent evidence of
"metaphysical
infusions"
(described above)
that Hatta-
way
sees as
underlying
the structure of Bacon's
thought.
I shall
argue
that Bacon's
thinking,
as distinct from his
style,
was not
infused
by metaphysical paradigms
in the sense that
Hattaway
claims. If the
quotations
cited
by Hattaway
are looked at in the context of the
argument
that Bacon was
making
and the definitions of terms that he himself
gives,
they
can be
interpreted
in
quite
a different
way.
The
argument
will be cen-
tered on Novum
Organum (1620)
and De
Augmentis
Scientarum
(1623)
as
these contain the core of Bacon's
thinking
on the nature of the scientific
enterprise.
The text worked from is an edition based on the
Montagu
trans-
lation,4
but footnotes show where the
Montagu
and
Spedding
translations
differ so
markedly
as
possibly
to affect Bacon's
meaning.
II. BACON AND THE SUPERNATURAL.-It is
certainly
true that
Bacon's
aphoristic style-elliptical, compressed
and concrete-involves the
use of
religious
and
magical metaphors
and
analogies.
But he chose his
style,
3
Hattaway, op.
cit.,
187. Other references will be inserted in
parentheses
in the
text.
4
J. E.
Creighton, ed.,
Advancement
of Learning
and Novum
Organum by
Francis
Bacon
(New York, 1944).
REPLY TO HATTAWAY: BACON'S 'KNOWLEDGE BROKEN' 489
as
Hattaway points out,
"to invite men to
inquire
further" . It
seems,
there-
fore,
particularly important
not to read Bacon's words without the
imagina-
tive
curiosity
that it was his intention to
invoke,
nor to take the surface
meaning
of isolated
quotations
for the
underlying thought.
Secondly,
if Bacon is considered a
genuinely
transitional
thinker,
then the
meanings
of the terms he used should be
sought
in the context of the
argu-
ments in which
they
are
embedded,
rather than in their
accepted
connota-
tions. Bacon himself makes this
point:
... we must . . .
declare,
as to our use of
words,
that
though
our
concep-
tions ... are
new,
and different from the
common, yet
we
religiously
retain
the ancient forms of
speech;
for .. . we
hope
that the method and clear
explanation
we endeavour
at,
will free us from
any
misconstruction that
might
arise from an ill-choice of words.... ."
He is
explaining
his method of
explanation-that
of
putting
new ideas under
old
labels,
to make the new more
acceptable.
It is unfortunate that his
very
attempt
to make himself clear to his
contemporaries,
seems to have confused
posterity.
With these
points
in
mind,
I shall look first at the
magical
in Bacon's
work, secondly
at his so-called
animism,
and
thirdly
at the
place
of
religion
in his
thought.
(1)
Bacon and
Magic.--Bacon's
attitude to
magic
is
complex
but con-
sistent. At the
beginning
of De
Augmentis
Scientarum,
he links
astrology,
magic
and
alchemy
and calls them the foulest disease of
learning-corrupting
knowledge
itself
by deceit,
falsehood and
imposture (ibid., 18).
But later he
is less extreme:
. . . those sciences which
depend
too much
upon fancy
and faith as this
degenerate
magic, alchemy
and
astrology,
have their means and their
theory
more monstrous than their ends and actions.
(Ibid., 100)
Here,
Bacon is
separating
the
'good'
or useful from the 'bad' or
superstitious
aspects
of these traditional
practices.
Thus he discriminates between the
ridiculous search for an 'elixir' and the
serendipitous practical
discoveries of
the alchemists (Ibid., 19),
between the
empty superstitions
about the action
of stars on the lives of individuals and the
possibility
of
predicting
meteoro-
logical
and
geological
events
(Ibid., 89). Similarly
he attacks what he calls
degenerate magic
in both De
Augmentis
Scientarum
(Ibid., 100)
and Novum
Organum:
The followers of natural
magic
who
explain everything by sympathy
and
antipathy,
have
assigned
false
powers
and marvellous
operations
to
things by
gratuitous
and idle
conjectures.... (Ibid., 343)
On the other
hand,
in the demonstration of his method in
action,
which forms
Book 2 of Novum
Organum,
he
suggests magical phenomena might
be
studied as
"prerogative
instances"
(significant examples)
of
particular
"natures":
5
"Aphorisms, representing
a
knowledge
broken,
do invite men to
inquire
far-
ther," quoted
in
Hattaway,
184.
6
Creighton, op.
cit.,
82.
490 MARY HORTON
Lastly, superstition
and
magic
... are not to be
entirely omitted;
for
although
they
be overwhelmed
by
a mass of lies and
fables, yet
some
investigation
should be
made,
to see if there be
really any
latent natural
operation
in
them....
(Ibid., 409)
He
is, however, suggesting looking
for natural
explanations by subjecting
so-called
magical phenomena
to scientific
inquiry.
However,
one use of the term
"magic" by
Bacon does seem difficult to
interpret.
In his classification of
knowledge,
he labels as
"magic"
his final
substantive
category
of natural
philosophy-that
of
"applied metaphysics."
The use of both the terms
"metaphysics"
and
"mnagic"
in this
particular
context is
idiosyncratic
and
only
understandable if
thought
of as
neologisms
under old labels. Bacon
clearly separates
his
newly
created
category
of
"magic"
from its current
meaning:
(current magic)
differs from the science we
propose
as much as the romances
of Arthur of Britain ... or other
imaginary heroes,
do from the commentaries
of Caesar in truth of narration.
(Ibid., 100)
And he starts his definition
by comparing
it to an older view:
We here understand
magic
in its ancient and honourable
sense-among
the
Persians it stood for a sublimer wisdom....
(Ibid.)
But Bacon's
meaning
is both more restricted and
essentially
novel.
"Magic"
as a
category
in his scheme of
learning
denotes the
application
of the knowl-
edge
of forms or "the relations of universal nature"
(Ibid.)
to the
production
of effects:
That science which leads to the
knowledge
of hidden forms for the
produc-
tion of
great
effects,
and
by joining agents
to
patients
[those
acted
upon]
setting
the
capital
works of nature to view.
(Ibid.)
It is not
entirely
clear what Bacon means
here,
and
unfortunately
he
gives
no
examples.
What is
very clear, however,
is that he does not include
any
of the
contemporary rag-bag
collection of
superstitious
beliefs in his new
definition,
for what follows is a diatribe
against
that same trio of
degenerate magic,
alchemy,
and
astrology (Ibid.). What, then,
is left in this
category
that Bacon
has
perhaps unwisely
labelled
"magic"?
In Novum
Organum,
the
preroga-
tive instances that he defines as
"magical"
(as
opposed
to current
practices)
are those occurrences where the manifest effect far
outweighs
in
strength
the
apparent
cause:
... where the matter or efficient
agent
is
scanty
or small, in comparison
with
the
grandeur
of the . . . effect
produced. (Ibid., 468)
We
may
assume,
in the context of Bacon's whole
thought,
that this
"magical" production
of
large
effects from small causes is seen as a natural
rather than a
supernatural
event.
Perhaps
we can
only
conclude
that,
what-
ever he
intuitively imagined
it to
be,
Bacon
actually
did not know what would
be the result of the
application
of
knowledge
of the fundamental relations
between the ultimate
particles
of nature
(the
aim of his
'metaphysics')
to the
"joining"
of those same
particles. "Magic,"
to
Bacon,
was an
open
cate-
gory, though
it
may
no
longer
be so
today.
(2)
Bacon and Animism.-There can be no doubt that Bacon believed
that all
tangible bodies,
animate and
inanimate,
contained a
"spirit"
or
intangible
essence. The
point
at issue is whether this belief could be held to
be
"supernatural."
It will be
argued
that,
certainly
within the two works
being
discussed,
all the references show that Bacon
thought
that
spirits
were
corporeal
substances
(potentially,
if not
actually)
visible to the senses and
open
to scientific
investigation
in the same
way
as all natural
phenomena.
In
a sense, Bacon's notion of
spirit
can be seen as a
proto-scientific concept,
or
a
way
of
describing
the as
yet unknown,
in the same
way
that the
concepts
of
phlogiston
and ether
performed 'holding' strategies
in the
development
of
the scientific
explanations
that
eventually disproved
their existence in the
sense of
finding
them useless or a hindrance to scientific
understanding.
In
support
of this contention it can be shown that all Bacon's references
to
spirits
in Novum
Organum
are in Book 2 where he is
demonstrating
the
utility
of his
prerogative
instances-those
examples
of creative
selectivity
of
observation-in the
practice
of his Method.7 The central reference is
Aphorism 40,
from which
Hattaway (190)
draws his
quotation.8
In
it, Bacon
is
giving examples
of what he means
by 'citing'
or
'invoking' prerogative
instances: "their
property
is that of
reducing
to the
sphere
of the senses
objects
which do not
immediately
fall within it"
(Ibid.). They
are
particularly
useful when
investigating
the nature of
spirits:
Let the
required
nature ... be the action and motion of the
spirit
enclosed
in
tangible bodies;
for
every tangible body
with which we are
acquainted
contains an invisible and
intangible spirit,
over which it is
drawn,
and which
it seems to clothe.
(Ibid., 427)
Although
these
spirits
can neither be seen nor
touched, changes
in their
relationship
to their
tangible
bodies are manifest in observable
changes
in
these bodies. For
instance,
an increase in
spirit
is manifest in a decrease in
weight
of the
body:
"for the
spirit
itself has no
weight."
The emission or
departure
of
spirits
is manifest in: the increased hardness of the
substance,
and still more
by
the
fissures, contractions,
shrivelling
and folds of the
bodies. . . . On the other
hand,
when the
spirits
are 'retained and
yet
expanded:
then the bodies are softened as in hot
iron;
or flow as in
metals;
or melt as in
gums,
wax and the like....
(Ibid.)
But
spirits
are also a
property
of
living substances,
in
fact,
a
particular relationship
between
spirit
and
body
is the
defining
attribute of life itself:
When the
spirit
is neither ... retained nor
emitted,
but . . . exercises
itself,
within its
limits,
and meets with
tangible parts
which
obey
. . . and follow
it ... then follows the formation of an
organic body
... of
vegetables
and
animals.
(Ibid., 428)
7
These are
twenty-seven types
or models of observation that Bacon
thought
important
for the
practicing
scientist to have at his
fingertips.
8
Creighton, op. cit.,
426.
492 MARY HORTON
The
examples
of the formation of
organic
bodies that Bacon
gives
are those
of
"spontaneous generation":
in amiculae
sprung
from
putrefaction,
as in
the
eggs
of
ants, worms, mosses, frogs
after rain etc.
(Ibid.)
The other
major
introduction of the
concept
of
spirit,
and from a some-
what different
viewpoint,
is in De
Augmentis
Scientarum where Bacon is
discussing
the divisions of the soul in human
philosophy (Ibid., 125).
He
discriminates between the divine or rational soul and what he calls the
produced soul,')
which man holds in common with brutes. He
suggests
that
the
produced soul,
could
equally
be called
"spirit."
Its
substance, though
invisible is
corporeal,
and its
nature,
as well as its
operation
is,
in
theory
at
least, open
to scientific
inquiry
in the same
way
as the
burning
of wood or
the
appearance
of
grubs
in
rotting
meat.
We can see the wide
range
of
phenomena
that Bacon was
trying
to unite
under his
single explanatory proto-concept
of
spirit.
' But however muddled
or
fundamentally wrong
his inferences from observation
may
have
been,
the
point
is that he was
looking
for natural
explanations
for natural
phenomena.
He never
suggests
that these
spirits
were
supernatural-unknown perhaps,
but not unknowable.
Also,
it is the case
that,
in contradiction to
Hattaway's
contention
(190)
Bacon does not blur the distinctions between
form, cause,
and
spirit.
Form or causal law has a
precise
technical
meaning
in his
exposi-
tion of his method '-it is a means of
explanation. Spirits
are "notions" or
"natures,"
that
is, phenomena
to be
explained.
However,
from the
vantage point
of the twentieth
century
we can see the
extent to which Bacon's
thinking
about the natural world
and,
in
particular,
the
biosphere,
was distorted
by
his notion of
"spirit."
In his own terminol-
ogy, "spirit"
would be a false notion-"an idol of the
market-place"
although
one which he himself did not
recognize
as such.
But,
as an 'idol' it
was
potentially
discoverable and eliminable
through
the
operation
of his
method. So
although
Bacon's
thinking
about the natural world
may
have
been distorted
by
his notion of
spirit,
it is the contention of this
paper
that
his method for
thinking
about the natural world was not so distorted.
Bacon and
Religion.-In
De
Augmentis
Scientarum Bacon sets out to
defend the
pursuit
of
knowledge
as free
inquiry against
the obstacles
put
forward
by ignorance disguised
as:
(1)
the zeal of divines, (2)
the
arrogance
of
politicians,
or
(3)
the errors of men of letters
(Creighton, 31).
One aim,
9
Bacon's solution to the
mind-body problem
was
complex
but
ingenious.
Man
had a rational or divine
soul,
a sensible or
produced
soul,
which was the
production
and
organ
of the divine
soul;
and a
body
which was the
production
and
organ
of the
produced
soul. The faculties were not
properties
of the soul but relational attributes.
Thus reason was the means of communication between the divine and
produced soul;
and
sensibility (perception)
and will
(voluntary movement)
the means of communica-
tion between the
produced
soul and the
body.
In this
way
the
produced
soul of man
and all its faculties
(including reason)
are
open
to
investigation
in the same
way
as the
produced
soul of brutes.
Only
the
empty category
of divine soul remains
beyond
science.
"0 There is one other
place
where Bacon introduces the
concept
of
spirit.
His
category
of divine
philosophy
or natural
theology
is the
knowledge
of God, angels,
and
spirits.
But
spirits
in this context seem to connote
only
evil
spirits,
and as created
things
are "neither unsearchable nor forbid" but
open
to scientific
inquiry.
See
Creighton,
81. "
See "Form as Law" below.
both
explicit
and
implicit,
of his classification of
knowledge
was that of
drawing
a distinction between
religious
and secular
knowledge
that would
free scientific
inquiry
from
religious
restrictions,
while at the same time
giving
traditional
religious thought
a
'respectable' place
in the new
learning.
So in his division of
history
he
places
accounts of
supernatural events,
such
as
miracles,
under ecclesiastical
history, apart
from
strange
tales that could
be
investigated
as natural events
(Ibid., 48).
In his third and last division of
knowledge,
he
separates philosophy
from
theology,
and within
philosophy
he
distinguishes
divine
philosophy (or
what he calls the
knowledge
of
God,
Angels,
and
Spirits)
from natural
philosophy (or science)
and human
philoso-
phy (or
the social
sciences), (Ibid., 76).
And he makes further divisions
between
religious
and secular
knowledge
within these latter two
categories.
In
general, although
this
point
will not be
argued
in detail here, Bacon can
be seen to be
using
his classification
system
to divide those
aspects
of
knowledge susceptible
to scientific
inquiry,
from those
"supernatural"
aspects-philosophical, religious,
or
magical-not
so
susceptible.
De
Aug-
mentis Scientarum was a form of
pre-Popperian
demarcation
by
definition.
In the whole of Novum
Organum
there are
only
seven
aphorisms12
in which
religious
references are used in a sense more than
merely
metaphorical probably
a reasonable reflection of the
importance
Bacon
gave
the
subject
in the context of his
explanation
of his 'new
organ'
or
inductive method. Three of these are
quoted by Hattaway.13 Interestingly
enough,
however, Bacon's most
cogent
attack on the anti-scientific attitudes
of the
religious
establishment of his
day
does not seem to
Hattaway worthy
of reference:
In short
you may
find all access to
any species
of
philosophy
however
pure,
intercepted by
the
ignorance
of divines. Some in their
simplicity
are
appre-
hensive that a too
deep inquiry
into nature
may penetrate beyond
the
proper
bounds of
decorum, transferring
and
absurdly applying
what is said . . .
against
those who
pry
into divine
secrets,
to the
mysteries
of
nature,
which
are not
forbidden
by any prohibition.
Others ... consider that if
secondary
causes be
unknown, everything may
the more
easily
be referred to the Divine
hand ... a
matter, they think,
of the
greatest consequence
to
religion,
but
which can
only really
mean that God wishes to be
gratified by
means of
falsehood....
Lastly
there are those who
appear
anxious lest there should
be
something
discovered in the
investigation
of
nature,
to overthrow or at
least shake
religion, particularly among
the unlearned .... But
anyone
who
properly
considers the
subject
will find natural
philosophy,
after the Word of
God,
the surest
remedy against superstition,
and the most
approved support
of faith.14
(My emphasis.)
Here,
Bacon is
exposing
the
inadequacies
of the
religious arguments against
scientific
inquiry by turning
his
opponents' arguments against
themselves.
The intellectual
courage
(and
perhaps naivete)
behind the
attack,
as well as
the
danger
that his
opponents
must have sensed in
it,
seem undoubted.
12
Book
1, aphorisms 70, 89, 93, 124,
129. Book
2, aphorisms 15,
52.
13
Book
1, aphorisms 93,
124. Book
2, aphorism
52.
14
Book
1, aphorism
89.
Creighton,
346.
494
MARY HORTON
Novum
Organum
was
published
in 1620. Bacon lost office in 1621. It does
not seem
wholly unlikely
that the two events
were,
in some
way,
connected.
Bacon tends to introduce
religious arguments
as
justifications
for the
advance of science at the ends of
chapters
and
books.'5
He does this at
the end of Book 1 of Novum
Organum, showing support
for free
inquiry
in
the Bible:
(Solomon) placed
his
glory
in none of these
(material possessions)
but de-
clared that it is the
glory
of God to conceal a
thing,
but the
glory
of a
king
to search it out.16
However, against
the
charge
of hubris he
argues
thaf the
knowledge
attained
by
free
inquiry
into nature will do no more than:
Let mankind
regain
their
rights
over nature
assigned
to them
by
the
gift
of
God,
and obtain that
power
whose exercise will be
governed by right
reason
and true
religion. (Creighton, 366)
Today
we
may
smile
wryly
at Bacon's
optimism
but in that
optimism lay
the
essence of his
modernity.
The same
argument
is extended in the two final sentences of Book 2. It
is
interesting
that
only
the first sentence is
quoted by Hattaway (184)
as
evidence that Bacon was a
reactionary
thinker as a
methodologist
of science.
However,
if the two sentences are considered
together
in the
light
of the
argument
of the whole
preceding
work
(the explication
of his new method for
scientific
inquiry),
an
opposite interpretation
seems more reasonable.
For man
by
the
fall,
lost . . . his state of innocence and his
empire
over
creation,
both of which can be
partially
recovered even in this
life,
the first
by religion
. . . the second
by
the arts and sciences. For creation did not
become
entirely
... rebellious
by
the
curse,
but in
consequence
of the Divine
decree "in the sweat of
thy
brow shalt thou eat
bread",
she is
compelled by
our labours . . . to afford mankind in some
degree
his . . .
daily
wants.
(Creighton, 470)
As
Hattaway says,
Bacon is
again segregating
the aims and areas of
operation
of
religion (to
restore man's
innocence)
and science
(to
restore his
'empire
over creation' or the world without want that was
Eden).
But Hatta-
way
does not
say
that Bacon's
message
is
again
one of
hope.
The restoration
is to be
by
the
practice
of the arts and sciences and "even in this life" we can
ameliorate our lot
by
our own efforts.
Again,
this does not entail
hubris,
or
opposition
to God's
will,
but a
following
of His commandment "in the sweat
of
thy
brow shalt thou eat bread." And here too lies
hope,
for God meant
man to look after himself. Bacon
argued
so
cogently
for this idea of
progress
by self-help-in opposition
to intellectual
despair-that
it
helped
to advance
the Newtonian revolution in
science,
the revolution that found in Bacon its
advocate and
mouthpiece.
To summarize: this review of the use of
religious arguments
in De
Aug-
mentis Scientarum and Novum
Organum,
shows
that,
taken in
context, they
15
End of Books 1 and
2,
Novum
Organum;
ends of Books
3, 7,
and
8,
De
Augmentis
Scientarum.
16
Book
1, aphorism
129.
Creighton,
365.
form the reiteration of a
single underlying
thesis-that for scientific
progress
to be
possible
the
religious
mode of
inquiry
must be
separated
from the
scientific. But this
separation
of method or means did not entail the
opposi-
tion of aim or end. Scientific and
religious
"truths" were
ultimately
the
same;
and therefore the search for scientific
knowledge
and
technological
advance could
only
increase and not
endanger religious
faith. These
argu-
ments of
identity
of
end, however,
can be seen as
political
or social
justifica-
tions to enable modern science to
begin.
I shall discuss later Bacon's
argu-
ments
concerning
the
utility
of
explanations
in terms of first and/or final
causes within natural
philosophy,
but in essence
they
are consistent with the
arguments already given.
First and final causes
belong
to
religion,
not to
science;
it is irrelevant to science whether
they
are
"right"
or
"wrong"-they
are
simply
not useful as
explanatory
tools.
III. BACON AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY-Bacon's definition and
use of terms in his classification of natural
philosophy
in Book 3 of De
Augmentis
Scientarum and his
explanation
of his method in book 2 of Novum
Organum
have both caused the
greatest misunderstanding
of his work. As we
have
already said,
Bacon invented new
concepts
but used them under famil-
iar labels. We can best see the
meaning
of Bacon's
concepts
of
primary
philosophy, metaphysics, law, form,
and cause in that
light.
(1) Philosophia
Prima and
Metaphysics.-These
are two
clearly
distinct
categories
in Bacon's classification of
knowledge. Primary
or
Summary phi-
losophy looks,
at first
sight,
as if it is a
'higher
order' or more
general
category
of
knowledge, covering (potentially
at
least) aspects
of his three
categories
of
philosophy:
divine, natural,
and human.
Metaphysics
is a
par-
ticular subdivision of
pure
or theoretical
science, dealing
with the
inquiry
into formal causes
(the underlying relationships
of fundamental
aspects
of
nature)
or into functional and final causes.
Bacon first defines his
category
of
philosophia prima
when
introducing
his third division of the Advancement
of Learning,
"the Sciences":
It is first
necessary
that we constitute a universal science as a
parent17
to the
rest and as
making
a common road to the sciences before the
ways separate.
And this
knowledge
we call
'philosophia prima; primitive
or
summary phi-
losophy;
it has no other for its
opposite,
and differs from other sciences
rather in the limits
whereby
it is confined than in the
subject
as
treating only
the summit of
things.
And whether this should be noted as
wanting'8 may
seem
doubtful, though
I rather incline to note
it;
for I find a certain
rhapsody
of natural
theology,19 logic
and
physics
delivered in a certain
sublimity
of
discourse, by
such as aim at
being
admired
by standing
on the
pinnacles
of
the
sciences;
but what we mean
is,
without
ambition,
to
design
some
general
science for the
reception
of axioms not
peculiar
to
any
one science but
common to a number of them.
(Creighton, 77)
17
Although
Bacon does use the
metaphor
of
primary philosophy
as the mother or
parent
of the sciences a number of times within and around the above
quote,
to
attribute
this,
as
Hattaway does,
to a belief in
religious
or medieval
personifications
of "wisdom as mother"
is,
to
my mind,
to mistake the
style
for the
thought.
18
I.e.,
deficient. A manifest aim of De
Augmentis
Scientarum was to
point
out
gaps
in
learning.
19
I.e.,
divine
philosophy.
496 MARY HORTON
There is
nothing "metaphysical" (in Hattaway's
sense of the
term)
here.
Neither is his model
rigidly
hierarchical in the sense that would be
implied
if his
category
of
primary philosophy
were
designed
to contain some distilled
essence of the
knowledge
of all the "lower" sciences. He is
merely suggest-
ing
the
collecting together
of a number of
generally accepted
axioms
(which,
as his
examples show,
he sees here as maxims,
hypotheses,
or
proto-
scientific
generalizations)
that are
capable
of
application
over a number of
branches of science.
One of the
examples
he
gives may help
to make his
meaning
clearer. He
takes an axiom in mathematics--if
equals
be added to
unequals
the wholes
will be
unequal"-and says
that the same
principle-can
be seen as
operating
in distributive
justice (a part
of ethics which is a sub-division of human
philosophy
in Bacon's
classification).
For in commutative
justice equity requires
that
equal portions
be
given
to
unequal persons;
but in distributive
justice
that
unequal portions
be distrib-
uted to
unequals. (Ibid.)
The
analogy may
not seem
particularly helpful
to the modern
reader,
but the
point
is that it shows that Bacon's
interpretation
of his
category
of
primary
philosophy
bears no resemblance to
any
"divine
logos."
On the
contrary,
it
is an
eminently practical
device for the creative use of
knowledge by
a form
of
analogical thinking,
a
seventeenth-century
version of "lateral
thinking"
perhaps,20
that
might generate
some
genuinely
fruitful
insights,2
or on the
other
hand, might
not.
A little
later,
Bacon reiterates his definition of his
category
of
primary
philosophy, distinguishing
it
clearly
from both
"metaphysics" (the inquiry
into
form)
and "divine
philosophy" (the inquiry
into the
supernatural):
Thus . . . we
distinguish metaphysics
. . . from
primary philosophy
. . .
making (the latter)
the common
parent
of the
sciences,
and
(the former)
a
part
of natural
philosophy.
. . .
(Creighton, 83)
And a few lines later: "We have referred the
inquiry concerning God, unity,
goodness, angels
and
spirits
to natural
(theology)." Primary philosophy
re-
mains almost as a residual
category:
We have
assigned
the common and
promiscuous
axioms of the sciences to
primitive philosophy;
and all relative and accidental conditions of essences
which we call transcendent ... with this
understanding,
that
they
be handled
according
to their effects in nature and not
logically. (Ibid.)
It combines the
study
of "common and
promiscuous
axioms,"
i.
e.,
inter-
disciplinary analogies,
with what
might
be called
(from
the
examples
he
gives,
viz., multitude, paucity, identity, diversity, etc.)
"common and
pro-
miscuous attributes." But the
important point
is that the
study
of these
"axioms" and "attributes" is to be
by empirical investigation,
and not
merely by logical argument.
20
Cf. Edward De
Bono,
Lateral
Thinking:
A Textbook
of Creativity (London,
1970).
21
A successful
present-day example
of
cross-disciplinary analogical thinking
is
The last
major quotation
where Bacon
appears
to be
defining
the
place
of
primary philosophy
in his classification of science is
given
at the
point
in his
argument
where he is
expanding
in detail his definition of
metaphysics
as a
branch of
pure
or theoretical natural science. The
purpose
of the
study
of
formal causes is to enable
deeper
and more universal laws of nature to be
formulated:
"collecting
and
uniting
the axioms of the sciences into more
general
ones"
(Ibid., 97).
It
may
seem as if Bacon is
confusing metaphysics
and
primary philosophy
here,
but the next
quotation
makes the
position
clearer:
For the sciences are like
pyramids,
erected
upon
the
single
basis of
history
and
experience
and therefore a
history
of nature is I the basis of natural
philosophy,
and 2 the first
stage
from the base is
physics
and 3 that nearest
the vertex is
metaphysics.
But 4 for the vertex itself "the work which God
worketh from
beginning
to end""2 or the
summary
law of
nature,
we doubt
whether human
inquiry
can reach it. But for the other
three, they
are the true
stages
of the sciences.
(Creighton, 96)
The
pyramid
model is that of the natural sciences. Scientific
inquiry
is based
on
empirical
evidence derived from "natural histories" or the naive record-
ing
of
primary
data. From that basis
physics,
or the
inquiry
into material and
efficient
causes,
can be carried out.
Metaphysics,
the
inquiry
into formal
cause,
uses the results of some of the
investigations
of
physics
as
part
of its
data base. The
quotation
continues:
And therefore the
speculation
was excellent in Parmenides and
Plato,
that all
things by
defined
gradations
ascend to
unity,
as that science is most excellent
which least burdens the
understanding by
its
multiplicity,
this
property
is
found in
metaphysics
as it
contemplates
those
simple
forms of
things,
den-
sity, rarity
etc. which we call forms of the first
class;
for
though they
are
few,
yet by
their commensurations and co-ordinations
they
constitute all truth.
(Creighton, 97)
These last two
quotations (or parts
of
them)
form
Hattaway's major
evidence
concerning
the nature of Bacon's
concept
of
Primary Philosophy:
The
assumption
is that in each discrete
discipline
certain
general principles
are manifest and their recurrence makes them
judged
to be
universally
true.
(Hattaway, 185)
We would
argue that,
on the
contrary, primary philosophy
as defined earlier
by
Bacon is not mentioned here at all. The
"summary
law of nature" is
defined here in
quasi-religious
terms as total
knowledge
of all God's works
which is
quite different,
and
anyway
Bacon doubts whether man can achieve
it,
and so excludes its
study
from the domain of "true science." The last half
of the
quotation
from Bacon is concerned
entirely
with that branch of natural
science that Bacon calls
"metaphysics."
It is
quite
evident that Bacon views
the
discovery
of the cause of
simple
forms as the "ultimate truth" in the
sense that it is the furthest natural science can
go.
But the direction of
Bacon's
pursuit
of "truth"
(as
his
examples
in book
2, aphorism 8,
of Novum
Ludwig
von
Bertallanffy's
General
Systems
Theory
(Penguin Books,
1968:
rpt. 1971).
22
The
quotation
is from Ecclesiastes III:
1,
as
Creighton gives
it.
498 MARY HORTON
Organum show)
is the same as that of Democritus-reductive. And his
method,
described in the same
book,
bears almost no resemblance what-
soever to
Hattaway's description
of
simple generalization
from observed
recurrences of "manifest
principles."
To
conclude,
De
Augmentis
Scientarum and Novum
Organum
should be
considered as two
closely interlocked, highly compressed,
and almost
totally
consistent
aspects
of the same basic
argument
or
explication
in Bacon's
conception
of the scientific
enterprise.
If this is
done,
and if Bacon's con-
cepts,
which he claimed were
quite
new,
are defined in terms of how he uses
them in the structure of his
arguments,
then the confusions and misunder-
standings
which seem to have
dogged
most
attempts
to
interpret
him
may
be
avoided. In this
particular
context for
instance, primary philosophy
should
be seen as distinct from the
summary
law of nature and from natural
theology
(which
however is a
synonym
for divine
philosophy).
All these
categories
are
distinct from that of
metaphysics,
which is a most
idiosyncratic
Baconianism
in that it is the most
important
theoretical branch of his natural science. His
similar use of the label
"magic"
to denote the most
important
branch of his
applied
science is
similarly idiosyncratic.
From the
viewpoint
of the twen-
tieth
century
we
may
think it an
irritating
form of obscurantism.
But,
as will
be
argued later,
it could also be the hall-mark of the
genuine
innovator.
(2) Law, Form,
and Cause.-The central contention of
Hattaway's
paper
is that Bacon identifies scientific laws with either Aristotelian final
causes or divine commandments or both.
Having
established this
contention,
he can then dismiss Bacon's method as
nothing
more than a
process
of
preparing
the mind for divine revelation
(Hattaway, 188).
There is a
missing
middle term in this
argument-that
all divine commandments are discover-
able
only by
divine revelation-but this is
apparently
assumed.
Hattaway
refers
(187)
to R. E. Larsen's
paper
as
providing
evidence that Bacon iden-
tified law with final
cause;
but Larsen's
conclusion,
which
corresponds
to
that of other Bacon
scholars,
was
that,
to
Bacon,
law was identified with
formal cause.23 To
Hattaway,
this
point
is
unimportant,
as he finds it hard to
differentiate between final and formal causes. The main evidence
Hattaway
gives
for Bacon's
identifying
law with final cause or divine commands con-
sists of two
quotations
from Book 1 of Novum
Organum, aphorisms
93 and
124.
The
counter-arguments
of this
paper
are first that the two
quotations
considered in context do not
support Hattaway's contention;
second that
Bacon,
if not
Hattaway,
discriminates
clearly
between formal and final
causes and excludes the latter from serious consideration within
science;
third,
Bacon
gives
a
precise
and
fundamentally
new definition of formal
cause as scientific law at the
beginning
of Book 2 of Novum
Organum.
(a) Hattaway's
evidence.-His first reference
certainly
uses a
religious
analogy:
... let men learn . . . the difference that exists between the idols of the
human mind and the ideas of the divine mind. The former are mere
arbitrary
23
R. E.
Larsen,
"The Aristotelianism of Bacon's Novum
Organum,"
JHI,
23
(1972),
443.
abstractions;
the latter the true marks of the Creator on his
creatures,
as
they
are
imprinted on,
and defined in
matter, by
true and
exquisite
touches
....
(Creighton, 362)
But the context shows that Bacon is not
defining
what he means
by
scientific
law here. Book 1 of Novum
Organum
is the introduction to his method-
"the
demolishing
branch of our Instauration"
(ibid., 357)-in
which he is
demolishing
the
arguments against
his view of scientific
progress through
free
inquiry
into nature. In
aphorism 124,
he is
countering
the counter-
arguments
that he
anticipates
the academics will make to his insistence on
stressing
the
technological
advances and
practical
benefits that will result
from the new science:
... another
objection
will no doubt be
made, namely
that we have not
ourselves established a correct . . .
goal
. . . for the sciences . . . for
they
will
say
that the
contemplation
of truth is more . . . exalted than
any
utility
.... (Ibid., 362)
Bacon's answer
(of
which the
religious
reference
quoted
above,
forms a
major part)
is that the
pursuit
of truth is the
goal
of his new method-"we
are
founding
a real model of the world in the
understanding" (ibid.)
And he
concludes:
Truth therefore and
utility
are here
perfectly
identical,
and the effects are
more value as
pledges
of truth than from the benefit
they
confer on men.
(Ibid., 363)
This sounds more like the
approach
of
nineteenth-century pragmatism
than
seventeenth-century
Christian
skepticism (Hattaway, 188). However,
the
religious
reference shows that Bacon is
certainly
not
denying
God as First
Cause
(a
difficult
thing
for a
seventeenth-century
Lord Chancellor to do
publicly
even if he wanted
to). Also, despite
the
apparent pragmatism here,
the whole of Novum
Organum
demonstrates that
epistemologically
Bacon
was a
realist,
as
Hattaway says (ibid.).
But the
important point
is that Bacon
is
saying nothing
about his definition of a scientific law or scientific method
in this
aphorism, apart
from the
general
advice to learn to
reject
the naive
evidence of the human senses and received culture
(the idols),
and to look at
practical
effects
(inventions, experiments
or
whatever)
as forms of evidence.
Both these exhortations are
given repeatedly
in Novum
Organum.24
The second reference used
by Hattaway
as evidence is at a
point
where
Bacon is in the middle of a discussion of
why
scientific
progress
has been so
insignificant
in
comparison
with man's
progress
in other directions. The
tenth and
greatest obstacle, says Bacon,
is
"despair
and the idea of
impos-
sibility" (Creighton, 347)-which
is where
Hattaway begins
his
quotation.
The
point
of
interest, however,
is the
following aphorism, only part
of which
is
quoted by Hattaway:
Let us
begin
from God and show that our
pursuit
from its
exceeding goodness
clearly proceeds
from
him,
the author of all
good
and father of
light.
Now
24
For
example,
see the
experiment
on
gravity,
Book
2, aphorism
36.
500 MARY HORTON
in all divine works the smallest
beginning
leads
assuredly
to some
result,
and
the remark in
spiritual
matters that "the
kingdom
of God cometh without
observation,"
is also found to be true in
every great
work of Divine Provi-
dence, so that
everything glides quietly
on without confusion or
noise,
and
the matter is achieved before men either think or
perceive
that it com-
menced.
(Ibid., 348)
In the context of his whole
argument,
what Bacon seems to be
saying
here
is that because the
pursuit
of
knowledge
is
good,
it must come from God; and
as God's work in
spiritual
matters "cometh without observation"
(i.e.,
we
can't see it
happening)
then the
partly
unstated conclusion
might
be: we can
have the same
hope,
or faith in
science,
since it too comes from God. It is
not a
particularly good argument,
but what it is an
argument for
is "the
abandonment of
despair"
of scientific
progress,
not the abandonment of
science.
Finally,
it should be noted that these
aphorisms
are two of
only
four (out
of a
possible 130)
in Book 1 of Novum
Organum,
where
religious analogies
or
arguments
are used as more than
passing
references. The other two do not
support Hattaway's position,
are not mentioned
by him,
and have been
discussed in the section on
religion.
(b)
Formal and
final
causes.-In his classification
(ibid., 89)
of
specula-
tive natural
philosophy (or pure science)
Bacon makes his subdivisions not
in terms of substantive areas of
inquiry,
as he does in his
categorization
of
natural
history (ibid., 50),
but in terms of the
type
of causal
questions
asked;
using (at
least as
labels)
the four
accepted
Aristotelian
categories.
Thus his
"physics"
is the
investigation
of material and efficient
causes,
and his
''metaphysics"
that of formal and final causes; but,
within
physics
he makes
no further subdivision in terms of
cause,
whereas in
metaphysics
he is
par-
ticularly
careful to discriminate the
inquiry
into formal causes from that into
final causes. It becomes
apparent
that his
purpose
is to isolate and
effectively
exclude the
study
of final causes from serious consideration within his
natural
philosophy.
This is another demonstration of his use of his classifica-
tion
system
as a
pre-Popperian
demarcation tool.
First, by putting
final causes in
"metaphysics"
he has rescued the
study
of
"physics"
from final causes:
The second
part
of
metaphysics
is the
inquiry
of final
causes,
which we note
not as
wanting
but as
ill-placed:
these causes
being usually sought
in
physics,
not in
metaphysics,
to the
great prejudice
of
(natural) philosophy;
for the
treating
of final causes in
physics
has driven out the
inquiry
of
physical
ones,
and made men rest in
specious
and
shadowy causes,
without ever
searching
in earnest after such as are
really
and
truly physical. (Creighton, 97)
Bacon's
examples
shows that he is
thinking
of functional
explanations
here:
"the hairs of the
eyelids
are for a fence to the
sight"
and "the clouds are
designed
for
watering
the earth"
(ibid.).
It is this immediate level of
usage
that he is
trying
to eliminate from his
"physics."
He is
fully aware, however,
that
ultimately
to exclude
explanations
in terms of final cause from natural
philosophy
is to exclude God as creator of the universe:
. . the natural
philosophies
of Democritus and
others,
who allow no God
or mind in the frame of
things,
but attribute the structure of the universe to
the
necessity
of matter without
any
intermixture of final
causes,
seem . . . to
have
gone deeper
into nature . . . than the
philosophy
of Aristotle and
Plato . . .
(ibid., 97-98).
Bacon has not hesitated to
grasp
the nettle of
seventeenth-century
conten-
tion. But he
argues
that he is not
excluding
final causes
entirely, merely
separating
them
clearly
from
physical explanations.
And the different
types
of
explanation, although
distinct,
are not
mutually
exclusive: . . . "when
contained within their own
bounds, (final causes)
are not
repugnant
to
physi-
cal causes... ."
(Ibid., 98)
Secondly,
he
distinguishes
between formal and final causes
by saying
that
unlike the whole of
physics
and the
inquiry
into form which have
"applied"
branches,
labelled
respectively
"mechanics" and
"magic,"
there is no
possi-
ble
application
of
any knowledge
of nature
gained by posing questions
in
terms of function or
purpose.
Thus he has
effectively pigeon-holed
the
study
of final
causes,
which is not an area of
knowledge
he finds in need of
attention: "The
inquiry
of final causes is a barren
thing
or as a
virgin
con-
secrated to God"
(Creighton, 99)
Or in other
words,
so far as scientific
progress
is concerned the
study
of final causes is either a
totally pointless
or
else an
extremely holy
form of
inquiry,
but,
in either
case,
infertile.
Thirdly,
his
separation
of the formal
investigation
from that of final
causality
has freed his
category
of formal
explanation
from
any
residual
supernatural
connotations. That
is, although
he does not do so
explicitly,
it
is
fairly
clear from the context that he links "first" and "final" causal
explanations
as near if not
perfect synonyms25
and sees both as
ultimately
"supernatural"
and distinct from the
study
of form. At this
stage,
Bacon's
category
of science which he calls the
inquiry
of
form,
seems almost a
residual or
empty category
defined
only
in terms of what it is not. He
goes
on to formulate his
new,
more
precisely
non-aristotelian definition of form in
Book 2 of Novum
Organum,
where it is shown to be the corner-stone of his
new inductive method.
(c)
Form as Law.-Bacon's definition of form is a contentious
point.2"
All we
plan
to do here is to demonstrate
by
a detailed textual
analysis
the
way
in which he defines formal cause as scientific law
by
a
process
of exclusion
of alternatives in the first two
aphorisms
of Book 2 of Novum
Organum.
It
seems reasonable to
suppose
that the definition
given
in the
opening passages
of the
book,
which
provides
the
only
detailed demonstration of his method
will
give
a coherent account of the central
concept
of that method.
25
For
example,
Novum
Organum,
Book
1, aphorism
65,
in
Creighton,
328.
26
Cf.,
for
example,
C. J.
Ducasse,
"Francis Bacon's
Philosophy
of Science" in
Theories
of Scientific
Method,
eds. R. M.
Blake,
C. J.
Ducasse,
and E. H. Madden
(Seattle, 1966);
Rom
Harre,
Matter and Method
(New York, 1964); Mary Hesse,
"Francis Bacon's
Philosophy
of
Science,"
Essential Articles
for
the Study
of
Francis
Bacon,
ed. Brian Vickers
(Hamden
Archon
Books, 1964).
502 MARY HORTON
The
opening passages recapitulate
and summarize Bacon's main
argu-
ments:
(1)
The
discovery
of form as the search for
knowledge
is
distinguished
from the search for
power,
which is: "to
generate
and
superinduce
a new
nature or new natures
upon
a
given body" (Creighton, 368).
The search for
power
is the
applied
branch of
metaphysics,
labelled
"magic"
in the classi-
fication.
Although
Bacon
says
in a later
aphorism
that there is a close con-
nection between the
discovery
of form and the
discovery
of
effects,
the two
branches of
inquiry,
the
pure
and the
applied,
must remain distinct.
(2)
Bacon then
gives
his initial definition of form as:
(the)
true difference
of a
given
nature or the nature to which such nature is
owing,
or source from
which it emanates ....
(Ibid.)
At first
reading
this
may
seem somewhat
obscure,
but Bacon's demonstration of his method in
action,
later in the
book,
makes the
meaning
clearer. His
inquiry
into the form of heat con-
cludes: "The nature whose limit is
heat, appears
to be motion"
(ibid., 391).
That
is,
motion is the form of
heat;
in other
words,
heat is
nothing
other than
a
particular
sort of motion. The core of the definition
is, however,
the
enumeration of those
particularities,
or conditions under which motion be-
comes heat: "the true differences which limit motion and render it the form
of heat"
(ibid., 392).
This enumeration of differences
(defining attributes,
or
limiting conditions) by
which one nature can be
completely expressed
in
terms of
another,
is
essentially
what Bacon means
by
a
"form";
but he
goes
on to discriminate in more detail his new
concept
from older ideas.
(3)
He
distinguishes
the
discovery
of forms from what he calls "subordi-
nate labours" of "inferior
stamp"-the discovery
of "latent
process
and
conformation"-from the manifest efficient and manifest
subject
matter
up
to the
given
form"
(ibid., 368).
It becomes clear that Bacon is
making
a
crucial distinction here between his definition of
form,
the enumeration of
true differences between abstract
natures,
and the Aristotelian
concept
of a
formal
explanation,
which Bacon defines as the
provision
of a total
descrip-
tion of the
process
of formation of a
particular
concrete
body.
An
example,
(not Bacon's)
that
may clarify
the
point
is that the
complete description
of an
oak in terms of its
origin
from an acorn
using
evidence derived from obser-
vation would
be,
to
Bacon,
an
explanation
in terms of an Aristotelian formal
cause;
whereas the discrimination of the fundamental attributes of
"growth"
from that of
say, "stability"
or
"decay" using
the
particular
method of
sifting
evidence that he called "induction" would be the
discovery
of a
Baconian form. Bacon
may
have
misinterpreted
the definition of form in
Aristotle's
Metaphysics
here;
but the
point
is that he was
trying
to
distinguish
his
concept
from Aristotle's.
(4)
The
discovery
of form is identified with causal
explanation:
"It is
rightly
laid down that true
knowledge
is that which is deduced from causes"
(ibid.).
Larsen's conclusion that Bacon abandons deductive
logic
in his
method is incorrect. But
again,
Baconian forms as causes are
distinguished
sharply
from
explanations
in terms of final cause which are seen as
"corrupt-
ing"
science. Efficient and material causal
explanations (physics)
are also
deemed inferior to
explanations
in terms of both Baconian formal cause and
its
subsidiary,
Aristotelian latent
process.
(5)
Bacon
separates
his
concept
of form from that of a Platonic essence
or idea:
(we have) pointed
out and corrected above the error of the human
mind in
assigning
the first
qualities
of essences to forms ...
(Creighton,
368).
"Above" refers to
passages
in Book
1,
Novum
Organum, aphorisms
59
and
65,
where the
qualities
of Platonic essences are described as
being
abstractions from nature rather than dissections of
it;
of
being
"fixed" rather
than
"fluctuating,"
and most
importantly
of
having supernatural
connota-
tions confused with first and final causes.
(6)
He
recapitulates
his own
position: "nothing
exists in nature
except
individual
bodies, exhibiting
clear individual effects
according
to
particular
laws. .. ."
(ibid.).
(7) And, finally, having
cleared the intellectual
path
of alternative formu-
lations,
Bacon returns to a further definition of what he means
by
a form:
"yet
in
every
branch of
learning,
that
very law,
its
investigation, discovery
and
development,
are the foundations both of
theory
and
practice.
This
law,
therefore,
and its
parallel
in
every
science is what we understand
by
the term
form ..."
(ibid., 369).
That is to
say,
a form is a statement of fundamental
causal
relationships
between
phenomena
that is
general enough
to have
explanatory
and
predictive
value
or,
in other
words,
a scientific law.
IV. CONCLUSION: BACON AS INNOVATOR. -The consideration of
Bacon's method in detail falls outside the
scope
of this
paper,
but
interpreta-
tions have been
put
forward27 to show that it is far from
being
the
"dreary,"
mechanical,
or "infallible"
process
that
Hattaway
and others assert. It could
be
argued
that
"knowledge
broken" and what
Hattaway
calls "the
leap
to
theory"
is what Bacon called "the
liberty
of the
understanding,"28
and
defined
(by demonstration)
as an intuitive
leap
from the
recording
and
sifting
of information to the formulation of a
hypothesis;
it was this
leap
that he
called "induction."
The aim of the
present paper
has been
limited, however,
to the refutation
of a few of the
specific charges against
Bacon's
thinking,
and the clarification
of one or two of his basic
concepts.
The
attempt
has been to clear a
path
and
lay
a foundation for the conclusion that Bacon was a
prophetic
writer-a
transitional thinker of some considerable success. He can be seen as the
initiator of a Kuhnian
paradigm change
but a
change
of method or form rather
than of content.29 One
might conjecture
that the
type
of revolution in science
that
happened
in the seventeenth
century,
and which Kuhn described as the
change
from
pre-paradigm thinking
to the
acceptance
of the first
general
explanatory paradigm
of
Newton, required
an initial revolution in
method,
a
rethinking
of the
thinking
about how to think. It was Bacon's
genius
both to
recognize
this and to
try
to communicate his
knowledge
across the
very gap
that his new method created:
No correct
judgement
can be formed either of our method or its discoveries
by
those
anticipations
now in common
use;
for it is not to be
required
of
us to submit ourselves to the
judgment
of the
very
method we ourselves
arraign.so
27
Horton, op.
cit.,
note 2 above.
28
Novum
Organum,
Book
2, aphorism
20.
29
Horton, op.
cit.,
250 and footnote.
30
Novum
Organum,
Book
1, aphorism
33.
Creighton, op.
cit.,
318.
504 MARY HORTON
The distinction we are
trying
to make between revolutions of
conceptual
content and revolutions of
logical
form
might
be demonstrated in the dif-
ference between the Einsteinian and the
Heisenbergian
revolutions. To
Kuhn,
it is the view of the world-the
object
of science-that
changes
in a
revolution. This is due to
changing particular methodologies
or
techniques
combined with the new
concepts and,
above
all,
new curiosities and new
questions.
The
resulting change
in world view itself induces further
changes
in
particular concepts
and methods. The Einsteinian revolution was a revo-
lution of content in this
way.
It
changed
our ideas of
space
and time but not
our idea of science. The
Heisenberg revolution,
on the other
hand,
is a
revolution of form. It has
challenged
and broken the
very
boundaries that
brought
it into existence. The
Uncertainty Principle,
which
Heisenberg
de-
scribes in terms of the Aristotelian
concept ofpotentia,
does this.
Heisenberg
suggests
that
quanta
exist
only potentially
until
they
are actualized
by
their
observation. The
quantum jump,
or
discontinuity
found in
probability
curves,
thus
represents
the moment of
change
from
energy
into matter.31
The rules broken
by
this conclusion are
basically
three.
First,
the
postu-
late that the scientist looks for deterministic causes is broken-indeter-
minacy being
inherent at the micro-level rather than
being merely
a reflection
of the scientist's
inadequacy.
The second rule broken is that of the
objec-
tivity
of
science,
for the observation exists
only
in relation to the observer
and is not a reflection of the
inadequacy
of the instrument. The third broken
rule is the one which
says
that all scientific statements must be falsifiable.
The
impact
of
Heisenberg's thought
is still not
fully
understood.32 But the
point being
made here
by analogy
is that Bacon's ideas at the
beginning
of
the seventeenth
century may
have been
thought
as
revolutionary
and as
incomprehensible
as
Heisenberg's
at the
beginning
of the twentieth. The
difference is that Bacon was
standing
at the
starting point
of modern
science,
at the formulation of that
very
method that
Heisenberg
has
arraigned, by
defining quanta
in terms of Aristotelian
potentia.
As Bacon said:
Nor is it an
easy
matter to deliver and
explain
our
sentiments;
For those
things
which are themselves new can
yet
be
only
understood from some
analogy
to what is old.33
The Hatfield
Polytechnic, England.
31
Werner
Heisenberg, Physics
and
Philosophy,
The Revolution in Modern
Science
(London, 1959).
32 Ernest
Nagel,
The Structure
of
Science
(London, 1961).
33
Novum
Organum,
Book
1, aphorism
34, Creighton, op.
cit.,
318.

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Bacon and "Knowledge Broken": An Answer to Michael Hattaway

Author(s): Mary Horton

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