Bacon's Novum Organum

Abstract

THE writings of Lord Bacon, and especially the “Novum Organum,” possess a fourfold interest They have a direct bearing upon the history of philosophy, literature, logic, and physical science; and whatever estimate we may form of their influence upon each of these branches of knowledge, we think that few will fail to admit that Bacon threw a bridge over that vast and deep gulf which separates the ancient from the modern modes of thought, and directly opened a way to our present philosophy and science. Those who would make him the Founder of a sect, the Inventor of induction, or the Father of experimental philosophy, know nothing of his writings. Many had written against Aristotle before his time, many had advocated the collection of positive facts, and the application of a just induction, but they had offered on their part no system which could replace that of Aristotle. When the Scholastics began to abandon their leader, some took refuge in the meagre philosophies of Ramus, of Telesius, of Aconcio, of Nizolius, of Campanella, and of minor men. But when Bacon gave to the world a vast and definite system, and for the first time pointed out the fallacies of the old methods, and suggested new means of interrogating Nature, the scattered refugees from Scholasticism were glad to unite their forces under his banner. Bacon's Novum Organum. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, &c., by Thomas Fowler, Professor of Logic in the University of Oxford. (Clarendon Press, 1878.)