When was bacon born

Although the king later pardoned him, this was the end of Bacon's public life. He retired to his home at Gorhambury in Hertfordshire, where he continued to write. He died in London on 9 April Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled.

While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. These are the natural weaknesses and tendencies common to human nature.

Because they are innate, they cannot be completely eliminated, but only recognized and compensated for. Unlike the idols of the tribe, which are common to all human beings, those of the cave vary from individual to individual. They arise, that is to say, not from nature but from culture and thus reflect the peculiar distortions, prejudices, and beliefs that we are all subject to owing to our different family backgrounds, childhood experiences, education, training, gender, religion, social class, etc.

Examples include:. Like the idols of the cave, those of the theatre are culturally acquired rather than innate. And although the metaphor of a theatre suggests an artificial imitation of truth, as in drama or fiction, Bacon makes it clear that these idols derive mainly from grand schemes or systems of philosophy — and especially from three particular types of philosophy:.

According to Bacon, his system differs not only from the deductive logic and mania for syllogisms of the Schoolmen, but also from the classic induction of Aristotle and other logicians. As Bacon rightly points out, one problem with this procedure is that if the general axioms prove false, all the intermediate axioms may be false as well. In effect, each confirmed axiom becomes a foothold to a higher truth, with the most general axioms representing the last stage of the process. Thus, in the example described, the Baconian investigator would be obliged to examine a full inventory of new Chevrolets, Lexuses, Jeeps, etc.

And while Bacon admits that such a method can be laborious, he argues that it eventually produces a stable edifice of knowledge instead of a rickety structure that collapses with the appearance of a single disconfirming instance. Indeed, according to Bacon, when one follows his inductive procedure, a negative instance actually becomes something to be welcomed rather than feared. For instead of threatening an entire assembly, the discovery of a false generalization actually saves the investigator the trouble of having to proceed further in a particular direction or line of inquiry.

Meanwhile the structure of truth that he has already built remains intact. Although he himself firmly believed in the utility and overall superiority of his method, many of his commentators and critics have had doubts.

For one thing, it is not clear that the Baconian procedure, taken by itself, leads conclusively to any general propositions, much less to scientific principles or theoretical statements that we can accept as universally true.

For at what point is the Baconian investigator willing to make the leap from observed particulars to abstract generalizations? After a dozen instances? A thousand? One can thus easily imagine a scenario in which the piling up of instances becomes not just the initial stage in a process, but the very essence of the process itself; in effect, a zealous foraging after facts in the New Organon Bacon famously compares the ideal Baconian researcher to a busy bee becomes not only a means to knowledge, but an activity vigorously pursued for its own sake.

Every scientist and academic person knows how tempting it is to put off the hard work of imaginative thinking in order to continue doing some form of rote research. The assessment is just to the extent that Bacon in the New Organon does indeed prescribe a new and extremely rigid procedure for the investigation of nature rather than describe the more or less instinctive and improvisational — and by no means exclusively empirical — method that Kepler, Galileo, Harvey himself, and other working scientists were actually employing.

In fact, other than Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer who, overseeing a team of assistants, faithfully observed and then painstakingly recorded entire volumes of astronomical data in tidy, systematically arranged tables, it is doubtful that there is another major figure in the history of science who can be legitimately termed an authentic, true-blooded Baconian.

Science, that is to say, does not, and has probably never advanced according to the strict, gradual, ever-plodding method of Baconian observation and induction. It proceeds instead by unpredictable — and often intuitive and even though Bacon would cringe at the word imaginative — leaps and bounds.

Galileo tossed unequal weights from the Leaning Tower as a mere public demonstration of the fact contrary to Aristotle that they would fall at the same rate. He had long before satisfied himself that this would happen via the very un-Bacon-like method of mathematical reasoning and deductive thought-experiment. Harvey, by a similar process of quantitative analysis and deductive logic, knew that the blood must circulate, and it was only to provide proof of this fact that he set himself the secondary task of amassing empirical evidence and establishing the actual method by which it did so.

One could enumerate — in true Baconian fashion — a host of further instances. In summary, then, it can be said that Bacon underestimated the role of imagination and hypothesis and overestimated the value of minute observation and bee-like data collection in the production of new scientific knowledge. And in this respect it is true that he wrote of science like a Lord Chancellor, regally proclaiming the benefits of his own new and supposedly foolproof technique instead of recognizing and adapting procedures that had already been tested and approved.

On the other hand, it must be added that Bacon did not present himself or his method as the final authority on the investigation of nature or, for that matter, on any other topic or issue relating to the advance of knowledge.

Like Leonardo and Goethe, he produced important work in both the arts and sciences. Like Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, he combined wide and ample intellectual and literary interests from practical rhetoric and the study of nature to moral philosophy and educational reform with a substantial political career.

Like his near contemporary Machiavelli, he excelled in a variety of literary genres — from learned treatises to light entertainments — though, also like the great Florentine writer, he thought of himself mainly as a political statesman and practical visionary: a man whose primary goal was less to obtain literary laurels for himself than to mold the agendas and guide the policy decisions of powerful nobles and heads of state.

Like nearly all public figures, he was controversial. Similarly adulatory if more prosaic assessments were offered by learned contemporaries or near contemporaries from Descartes and Gassendi to Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle.

The response of the later Enlightenment was similarly divided, with a majority of thinkers lavishly praising Bacon while a dissenting minority castigated or even ridiculed him. In a similar gesture, Kant dedicated his Critique of Pure Reason to Bacon and likewise saluted him as an early architect of modernity.

Hegel, on the other hand, took a dimmer view. While no historian of science or philosophy doubts his immense importance both as a proselytizer on behalf of the empirical method and as an advocate of sweeping intellectual reform, opinion varies widely as to the actual social value and moral significance of the ideas that he represented and effectively bequeathed to us. On the other hand, those who view nature as an entity in its own right, a higher-order estate of which the human community is only a part, tend to perceive him as a kind of arch-villain — the evil originator of the idea of science as the instrument of global imperialism and technological conquest.

He praises Bacon as the great inventor of the idea of science as both a communal enterprise and a practical discipline in the service of humanity. Clearly somewhere in between this ardent Baconolotry on the one hand and strident demonization of Bacon on the other lies the real Lord Chancellor: a Colossus with feet of clay.

In the end we can say that he was one of the giant figures of intellectual history — and as brilliant, and flawed, a philosopher as he was a statesman. David Simpson Email: dsimpson condor. The final edition of his Essayes, or Counsels. The remarkable Sylva Sylvarum, or A Natural History in Ten Centuries a curious hodge-podge of scientific experiments, personal observations, speculations, ancient teachings, and analytical discussions on topics ranging from the causes of hiccups to explanations for the shortage of rain in Egypt.

His utopian science-fiction novel The New Atlantis, which was published in unfinished form a year after his death. Literary Works Despite the fanatical claims and very un-Baconian credulity of a few admirers, it is a virtual certainty that Bacon did not write the works traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare. Scientific and Philosophical Works It is never easy to summarize the thought of a prolific and wide-ranging philosopher. The Advancement of Learning Relatively early in his career Bacon judged that, owing mainly to an undue reverence for the past as well as to an excessive absorption in cultural vanities and frivolities , the intellectual life of Europe had reached a kind of impasse or standstill.

Sterile results — i. The Idols of the Tribe. Which is why Bacon prescribes instruments and strict investigative methods to correct them.

Our tendency to discern or even impose more order in phenomena than is actually there. The diurnal motion of the world system 9 th sphere is driven by sympathy; it carries the heavens westward around the earth. The sidereal fire is powerful and, accordingly, sidereal motion is swift the stars complete their revolution in 24 hours.

Since the sidereal fire becomes weaker if it burns nearer to the earth, the lower planets move more slowly and unevenly than the higher ones in this way Bacon, like Alpetragius, accounts for irregular planetary movement without reference to Ptolemy's epicycle theory. He applies his theory of consensual motion to physics generally e.

With quaternion theory we see that, in the final analysis, Bacon was not a mechanist philosopher. Bacon distinguishes between non-spiritual matter and spiritual matter. These spirits are never at rest. This points towards his inductive procedure and his method of tables, which is a complicated mode of induction by exclusion. It is necessary because nature hides her secrets. There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth.

The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immoveable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms.

And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried. Bacon IV [], Through these forms the natural philosopher understands the general causes of phenomena Kargon , His language turned from that of Greek physics to the usage of contemporary chemists. Only method leads to the knowledge of nature: in Sylva Sylvarum , Century I.

These spirits have two different desires: self-multiplication and attraction of like spirits. According to Kargon , 51 :. Bacon's later theory of matter is one of the interaction of gross, visible parts of matter and invisible material spirits, both of which are physically mixed.

Spirits interact with matter by means of concoction, colliquation and other non-mechanical chemical processes, so that Bacon's scientific paradigm differs from Descartes' mechanist theory of matter in his Principia Philosophiae , which presupposes res extensa moving in space.

Bacon's theory of matter is thus closely related to his speculative philosophy:. The distinction between tangible and pneumatic matter is the hinge on which the entire speculative system turns. Rees , ; Paracelsus had already stated that knowledge inheres in the object: see Shell , Bacon's theory of matter in its final version was more corpuscular than atomist Clericuzio , Bacon's particles are semina rerum : they are endowed with powers, which make a variety of motions possible and allow the production of all possible forms.

These spirits are constitutive for Bacon's theory of matter. As material, fine substances, composed of particles, combined from air and fire, they can, as we have seen, be either inanimate or animate.

Bacon thus suggests a corpuscular and chemical chain of being:. Organs responsible for these functions, for digestion, assimilation, etc. These functions flow from the spirit's airy-flamy constitution. The spirit has the softness of air to receive impressions and the vigour of fire to propagate its actions.

Bacon's speculative system is a hybrid based on different sources which provided him with seminal ideas: e. In his theory he combines astronomy, referring to Alpetragius see Dijksterhuis , —43; Rees and Upton , 26; Gaukroger, , —5; and see Grant , —66, for discussion of the cosmology of Alpetragius , and chemistry Rees a, 84—5 :.

Rees b, Bacon had no explanation for the planetary retrogressions and saw the universe as a finite and geocentric plenum, in which the earth consists of the two forms of matter tangible and pneumatic. The earth has a tangible inside and is in touch with the surrounding universe, but through an intermediate zone.

This zone exists between the earth's crust and the pure pneumatic heavens; it reaches some miles into the crust and some miles into air.

Terrestrial fire is a weakened form of sidereal fire. Air and ether loose power when terrestrial and sidereal fires grow more energetic—Bacon's sulphur and mercury are not principles in the sense of Paracelsus, but simply natural substances. The Paracelsian principle of salt is excluded by Bacon and the substance, which plays a role only in the sublunary realm, is for him a compound of natural sulphur and mercury Rees and Upton , Bacon used his quaternion theory for his cosmology, which differs greatly from other contemporary systems Rees , 68 :.

Bacon, who tried to conceive of a unified physics, rejected different modes of motion in the superlunary and in the sublunary world Bacon I [], He did not believe in the existence of the crystalline spheres nor in the macrocosm-microcosm analogy.

He revised Paracelsian ideas thoroughly. He rejected the grounding of his theories in Scripture and paid no attention at all to Cabbalistic and Hermetic tendencies Rees b, 90—1.

But he extended the explanatory powers of the quaternions to earthly phenomena such as wind and tides. System 2 depends on System 1, since explanations for terrestrial things were subordinated to explanations of the cosmological level.

The table of System 2 shows Bacon's matter theory. His quaternion theory is relevant for System 1. Bacon's system is built in a clear symmetrical way: each quaternion has four segments, together eight and there are four types of intermediates.

Thus, the system distinguishes twelve segments in all. He wanted to explain all natural phenomena by means of this apparatus:. Bacon's bi-quaternion theory necessarily refers to the sublunary as well as to the superlunary world. For there is consent between sulphur, oil and greasy exhalation, flame, and perhaps the body of a star. So is there between mercury, water and watery vapors, air, and perhaps the pure and intersiderial ether. Yet these two quaternions or great tribes of things each within its own limits differ immensely in quantity of matter and density, but agree very well in configuration.

Bacon IV [], —3; see also V [], —6; for tables of the two quaternions and Bacon's theory of matter see Rees , , ; Rees , 68—9. Bacon regarded his cosmological worldview as a system of anticipations, which was open to revision in light of further scientific results based on the inductive method Rees b, It was primarily a qualitative system, standing aside from both mathematical astronomers and Paracelsian chemists.

It thus emphasized the priority which he gave to physics over mathematics in his general system of the sciences. Bacon's two quaternions and his matter theory provide a speculative framework for his thought, which was open to the future acquisition of knowledge and its technical application. His Nova Atlantis can be understood as a text which occupies an intermediate position between his theory of induction and his speculative philosophy Klein c; Price It is important to bear in mind that Bacon's speculative system was his way out of a dilemma which had made it impossible for him to finish his Instauratio Magna.

His turn towards speculation can only be interpreted as an intellectual anticipation during an intermediate phase of the history of science, when a gigantic amount of research work was still to be accomplished, so that empirical theories could neither be established nor sufficiently guaranteed.

Speculation in Bacon's sense can therefore be seen as a preliminary means of explaining the secrets of nature until methodical research has caught up with our speculations. This great work remained a fragment, since Bacon was only able to finish parts of the planned outline. After that, Bacon printed the plan of the Instauratio , before he turned to the strategy of his research program, which is known as Novum Organum Scientiarum. Our steps must be guided by a clue, and see what way from the first perception of the sense must be laid out upon a sure plan.

Part 1 contains the general description of the sciences including their divisions as they presented themselves in Bacon's time. This part could be taken from The Advancement of Learning and from the revised and enlarged version De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum Part 2 develops Bacon's new method for scientific investigation, the Novum Organum , equipping the intellect to pass beyond ancient arts and thus producing a radical revision of the methods of knowledge; but it also introduces a new epistemology and a new ontology.

Bacon calls his new art Interpretatio Naturae , which is a logic of research going beyond ordinary logic, since his science aims at three inventions: of arts not arguments , of principles not of things in accordance to principles , and of designations and directions for works not of probable reasons. The effect Bacon looks for is to command nature in action, not to overcome an opponent in argument. The Novum Organum is the only part of the Instauratio Magna which was brought near to completion.

Part 3 was going to contain natural and experimental history or the record of the phenomena of the universe. These functional histories support human memory and provide the material for research , or the factual knowledge of nature, which must be certain and reliable. Natural history starts from and emphasizes the subtlety of nature or her structural intricacy, but not the complexity of philosophical systems, since they have been produced by the human mind.

Bacon sees this part of Instauratio Magna as a foundation for the reconstruction of the sciences in order to produce physical and metaphysical knowledge. Nature in this context is studied under experimental conditions, not only in the sense of the history of bodies, but also as a history of virtues or original passions, which refer to the desires of matter Rees a.

This knowledge was regarded by Bacon as a preparation for Part 6, the Second Philosophy or Active Science , for which he gave only the one example of Historia Ventorum ; but—following his plan to compose six prototypical natural histories—he also wrote Historia vitae et mortis and the Historia densi , which was left in manuscript. The text, which develops the idea of Part 3, is called Parasceve ad Historiam Naturalem et Experimentalem.

Filum labyrinthi is similar to, but not identical with, Cogitata et Visa. Speaking of himself in an authorial voice, Bacon reflects on the state of science and derives his construction of a research program from the gaps and deficiencies within the system of disciplines: sciences of the future should be examined and further ones should be discovered. Emphasis must be laid on new matter not on controversies.

It is necessary to repudiate superstition, zealous religion, and false authorities. Just as the Fall was not caused by knowledge of nature, but rather by moral knowledge of good and evil, so knowledge of natural philosophy is for Bacon a contribution to the magnifying of God's glory, and, in this way, his plea for the growth of scientific knowledge becomes evident.

Anticipations are ways to come to scientific inferences without recourse to the method presented in the Novum Organum. Meanwhile, he has worked on his speculative system, so that portions of his Second Philosophy are treated and finished: De Fluxu et Refluxu Maris and Thema Coeli. For this part of the Great Instauration , texts are planned that draw philosophical conclusions from collections of facts which are not yet sufficient for the use or application of Bacon's inductive method.

Part 6 was scheduled to contain Bacon's description of the new philosophy, as the last part of his Great Instauration ; but nothing came of this plan, so that there is no extant text at all from this part of the project. Already in his early text Cogitata et Visa Bacon dealt with his scientific method, which became famous under the name of induction. When later on he developed his method in detail, namely in his Novum Organum , he still noted that.

I on the contrary reject demonstration by syllogism …. Malherbe , Induction implies ascending to axioms, as well as a descending to works, so that from axioms new particulars are gained and from these new axioms. The inductive method starts from sensible experience and moves via natural history providing sense-data as guarantees to lower axioms or propositions, which are derived from the tables of presentation or from the abstraction of notions.

Bacon does not identify experience with everyday experience, but presupposes that method corrects and extends sense-data into facts, which go together with his setting up of tables tables of presence and of absence and tables of comparison or of degrees, i. The last type can be supplemented by tables of counter-instances, which may suggest experiments:. To move from the sensible to the real requires the correction of the senses, the tables of natural history, the abstraction of propositions and the induction of notions.

In other words, the full carrying out of the inductive method is needed. The sequence of methodical steps does not, however, end here, because Bacon assumes that from lower axioms more general ones can be derived by induction. The complete process must be understood as the joining of the parts into a systematic chain. From the more general axioms Bacon strives to reach more fundamental laws of nature knowledge of forms , which lead to practical deductions as new experiments or works IV, 24—5.

For Bacon, induction can only be efficient if it is eliminative by exclusion, which goes beyond the remit of induction by simple enumeration. The inductive method helps the human mind to find a way to ascertain truthful knowledge. The Second Part of the Novum Organum deals with Bacon's rule for interpreting nature, even if he provides no complete or universal theory.

He contributes to the new philosophy by introducing his tables of discovery Inst. Magna , IV , by presenting an example of particulars Inst.

Magna , II , and by observations on history Inst. Magna , III. It is well known that he worked hard in the last five years of his life to make progress on his natural history, knowing that he could not always come up to the standards of legitimate interpretation. Bacon's method presupposes a double starting-point: empirical and rational. True knowledge is acquired if we want to proceed from a lower certainty to a higher liberty and from a lower liberty to a higher certainty. The rule of certainty and liberty in Bacon converges with his repudiation of the old logic of Aristotle, which determined true propositions by the criteria of generality, essentiality, and universality.

For Bacon, making is knowing and knowing is making Bacon IV [], — Moreover, such theories are considered to be final, so that they are never replaced. The conventionalist acceptance of making predictions concerning future events cannot be separated from the question of probability.

Nowadays, however,. Huggett , Conventionalist deep-level theories of the world are chosen from among alternative ways of observing phenomena. Although theories revealing the world structure are not directly provable or disprovable by means of observation or experiment, conventionalists might maintain their chosen theory even in the face of counter-evidence. They therefore avoid changes of theory. Any move to a new theory is not taken on the basis of new evidence, but because a new theory seems to be simpler, more applicable or more beautiful.

Laws of nature are generally understood as being unrevisable O'Hear , The famous debate, sparked by Thomas Kuhn, on paradigmatic and non-paradigmatic science and theory is relevant here. He presupposes hypothetical theories, but these do not go beyond the collected data. The amount of established facts is not identical with that of possible data Gillies , Because of the dangers of premature generalization, Bacon is careful about speculations and rigorously rejects any dogmatic defense of them and the tendency to declare them infallible.

OFB XI, Bacon sees nature as an extremely subtle complexity, which affords all the energy of the natural philosopher to disclose her secrets. For him, new axioms must be larger and wider than the material from which they are taken. In terms of his method, he rejects general ideas as simple abstractions from very few sense perceptions. Bacon's method is therefore characterized by openness:. Nevertheless, I do not affirm that nothing can be added to what I prescribe; on the contrary, as one who observes the mind not only in its innate capacity but also insofar as it gets to grips with things, it is my conviction that the art of discovering will grow as the number of things discovered will grow.

OFB, XI, He believed that theories should be advanced to explain whatever data were available in a particular domain. These theories should preferably concern the underlying physical, causal mechanisms and ought, in any case, to go beyond the data which generated them.

They are then tested by drawing out new predictions, which, if verified in experience, may confirm the theory and may eventually render it certain, at least in the sense that it becomes very difficult to deny. Urbach , Bacon was no seventeenth-century Popperian.

Rather, on account of his theory of induction, he was:. Encyclopaedic repetition with an Aristotelian slant is being displaced by original compilation in which deference to authority plays no part whatever. Individual erudition is being dumped in favour of collective research. Conservation of traditional knowledge is being discarded in the interest of a new, functional realization of natural history, which demands that legenda —things worth reading—be supplanted by materials which will form the basis of a thoroughgoing attempt to improve the material conditions of the human race.

Form is for Bacon a structural constituent of a natural entity or a key to its truth and operation, so that it comes near to natural law, without being reducible to causality. This appears all the more important, since Bacon—who seeks out exclusively causes which are necessary and sufficient for their effects—rejects Aristotle's four causes his four types of explanation for a complete understanding of a phenomenon on the grounds that the distribution into material, formal, efficient, and final causes does not work well and that they fail to advance the sciences especially the final, efficient, and material causes.

Consider again the passage quoted in Section 3. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms at last.

Since for Bacon the formal necessity of the syllogism does not suffice to set up first principles, his method comprises two basic tasks: 1 the discovery of forms, and 2 the transformation of concrete bodies. The discovery from every case of generation and motion refers to a latent process according to which efficient and material causes lead to forms; but there is also the discovery of latent configurations of bodies at rest and not in motion Bacon IV [], — Bacon's new mode of using human understanding implies a parallelism between striving towards human power and constituting human knowledge.

To understand the workings of nature presupposes an arrangement of facts which makes the investigative analysis of cause and effect possible, especially by means of new experiments.

At this point the idea of scientia operativa comes in again, since the direction for a true and perfect rule of operation is parallel to the discovery of a true form. Other indispensable influences on Bacon, apart from a modified version of Aristotle, are critically assessed Hermeticism, rhetoric Vickers and alchemy Rees.

Two kinds of axioms correspond to the following division of philosophy and the sciences: the investigation of forms or metaphysics ; and the investigation of efficient cause and matter, which leads to the latent process and configuration in physics. Physics itself is split up by Bacon into Mechanics , i. His prerogative instances are not examples or phenomena simply taken from nature but rather imply information with inductive potential which show priority conducive to knowledge or to methodological relevance when inserted into tables.

The instances do not represent the order of sensible things, but instead express the order of qualities natures. These qualities provide the working basis for the order of abstract natures.

Bacon's tables have a double function: they are important for natural history , collecting the data on bodies and virtues in nature; and they are also indispensable for induction , which makes use of these data. In his Novum Organum the nature of all human science and knowledge was seen by him as proceeding most safely by negation and exclusion, as opposed to affirmation and inclusion.

Even in his early tracts it was clear to Bacon that he had to seek a method of discovering the right forms, the most well known of which was heat Novum Organum II, Aph. Most important were his tables of degrees and of exclusion. They were needed for the discovery of causes, especially for supreme causes, which were called forms.

The method of induction works in two stages:. They are not identical with natural law, but with definitions of simple natures elements or ultimate ingredients of things from which the basic material structure has been built Gaukroger , Forms are the structures constituted by the elements in nature microphysics.

In reaching this verdict, however, they overlooked the fact that a natural philosophy based on a theory of matter cannot be assessed on the grounds of a natural philosophy or science based on mechanics as the fundamental discipline.

One can account for this chronic mode of misunderstanding as a specimen of the paradigmatic fallacy Gaukroger , ff. Bacon came to the fundamental insight that facts cannot be collected from nature, but must be constituted by methodical procedures, which have to be put into practice by scientists in order to ascertain the empirical basis for inductive generalizations. His induction, founded on collection, comparison, and exclusion of factual qualities in things and their interior structure, proved to be a revolutionary achievement within natural philosophy, for which no example in classical antiquity existed.

Bacon's induction was construed and conceived as an instrument or method of discovery. Above all, his emphasis on negative instances for the procedure of induction itself can claim a high importance with regard to knowledge acquisition and has been acclaimed as an innovation by scholars of our time.

Some have detected in Bacon a forerunner of Karl Popper in respect of the method of falsification. Finally, it cannot be denied that Bacon's methodological program of induction includes aspects of deduction and abstraction on the basis of negation and exclusion.

Contemporary scholars have praised his inauguration of the theory of induction. Nevertheless, it is doubtful that Bacon's critics, who were associated with the traditions of positivism and analytical philosophy, acquired sufficient knowledge of his writings to produce solid warrants for their criticisms Cohen , —34; Cohen , 58ff.

In Bacon's thought we encounter a relation between science and social philosophy, since his ideas concerning a utopian transformation of society presuppose an integration into the social framework of his program concerning natural philosophy and technology as the two forms of the maker's knowledge. From his point of view, which was influenced by Puritan conceptions, early modern society has to make sure that losses caused by the Fall are compensated for, primarily by man's enlargement of knowledge, providing the preconditions for a new form of society which combines scientia nova and the millennium, according to the prophecy of Daniel Hill , 85— Science as a social endeavor is seen as a collective project for the improvement of social structures.

On the other hand, a strong collective spirit in society may function as a conditio sine qua non for reforming natural philosophy. Bacon's famous argument that it is wise not to confound the Book of Nature with the Book of God comes into focus, since the latter deals with God's will inscrutable for man and the former with God's work, the scientific explanation or appreciation of which is a form of Christian divine service.

Successful operations in natural philosophy and technology help to improve the human lot in a way which makes the hardships of life after the Fall obsolete.

It is important to note that Bacon's idea of a—to a certain extent—Christian society by no means conveys Christian pessimism in the vein of patristic thinkers but rather displays a clear optimism as the result of compounding the problem of truth with the scope of human freedom and sovereignty Brandt , With regard to Bacon's Two Books—the Book of God and the Book of Nature—one has to keep in mind that man, when given free access to the Book of Nature, should not content himself with merely reading it.

He also has to find out the names by which things are called. If man does so, not only will he be restored to his status a noble and powerful being, but the Book of God will also lose importance, from a traditional point of view, in comparison to the Book of Nature. But the process of reading is an open-ended activity, so that new knowledge and the expansion of the system of disciplines can no longer be restricted by concepts such as the completeness and eternity of knowledge Klein a, He never gives a hint in his works that he has concealed any message of unbelief for the sophisticated reader; but he emphasized: 1 that religion and science should be kept separate and, 2 that they were nevertheless complementary to each other.

For Bacon, the attack of theologians on human curiosity cannot be founded on a rational basis. As Calvin had done long before him in the Institutes , Bacon stated that since God created the physical world, it was a legitimate object of man's knowledge, a conviction which he illustrated with the famous example of King Solomon in The Advancement of Learning Zagorin , 49—50; see also Kocher , 27—8.

Bacon praises Solomon's wisdom, which seems to be more like a game than an example of man's God-given thirst for knowledge:.