while man is possessed of consciousness). According to Leibnitz there is power to represent (to conceive) everything in the world in all things, as well in animals, plants, and minerals, as in man. But these representations (conceptions) vary in infinite gradations of clearness, so that the higher monad (e.g. man) clearly conceives the lower (e.g. animals), while the lower represents dimly, almost unconsciously, the higher, down to the infinitely dim and incipient form of mental representation, the perception petite.

Human beings, Leibnitz would say, have the faculty to actually represent a stone. Now the stone is not, as we commonly believe, absolutely devoid of all power to represent man; he holds that the stone can, at least potentially, represent man (though the degree of actual representation in it be infinitely small); it is not absolutely devoid of consciousness. Man, high in this scale of monads, can represent far less dimly the most High Monad, God.1

God, this highest monad, representing clearly the whole world, has so united soul and body in all monads, so formed thought and fact, that they occur in order in unvarying harmony; each thought having its corresponding fact, each fact its corresponding thought; there is a pre-established harmony. There is no preponderance, no before or after of fact and thought (against Locke's Sensualism), no precedence of sensuous facts evoking sensuous experience. All Ideas are innate, and facts occur parallel with them.

1 Though Leibnitz likens himself to Plato, and this has been done by many others, the careful reader will see that the monads, containing soul and matter (form and matter), and the world of gradation ending with the highest monad make it more suitable to compare him with Aristotle.

CHAPTER XII.

ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY IN THE SEVENTEENTH

ance.

AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.

SECTION I.-BACON.

BACON the man and Bacon the philosopher have both had many antagonists, who not only dispute his claim. to moral toleration, but also to philosophical importBut there can hardly remain a doubt, that with Francis Bacon (born 1561, subsequently Lord Bacon) begins a new era in philosophy, and that he has introduced or markedly furthered the new and peculiar direction of English thought.

In Bacon, the rupture between the old scholastic train of thought and modern investigation, and the antithesis to the old school, is more pronounced than in Descartes. And we can grasp the numerous threads of Bacon's thoughts most easily and uniformly, if we view his philosophy from the opposition to the schoolmen. We can distinguish four salient points in this general opposition: Ist, Like Descartes, he opposes himself to the hasty credulity and the blind following of authority; to this corresponds his doctrine of 'idola.' 2nd, Opposed to supernatural guesswork, he concentrates all attention

upon nature, not theological philosophy, but natural philosophy; to this corresponds his ‘Regnum Hominis.' 3rd, Against the degradation of philosophy to dialectic disputes and quibbling with words, he holds that the criterion of truth is not formal, but material, i.e. Experience; its test is the Experiment. 4th, Against the great authority Aristotle, and his deductive method, Bacon introduces the inductive method.

1. If we wish to grasp truth and avoid error, we must, before all things, rid ourselves of those numerous sources of errors, our prejudices, which do not allow us to see things as they are, but as we wish them to be. We must enter the temple of truth pure, with clear eyes. Before, we have paid our devotion to idols, and they have so impressed us that they pollute our vision of pure truth. Therefore begin with ridding yourself of these idols, these prejudices, and contemplate nature as nature and nothing else. He enumerates four classes of idols: (1) the idols of the Tribe (idola tribûs); (2) the idols of the Den (idola specûs); (3) the idols of the Forum (idola fori); (4) the idols of the Theatre (idola theatri).

The idols of the Tribe constitute that prejudicial manner of contemplating nature, which cannot sever things from human interests; as when, for instance, one wishes to see order and symmetry where there is no such order. Mr. Lewes has remarked that the propensity which Bacon thus characterises may be called the 'spirit of system.' Professor Fischer has well illustrated this 'idol' by the argument brought against the old Ptolemaic system, that 'Nature cannot be so complicated.' There is no reason why nature should not

be complicated, though our logical spirit demands clear classification. A brain is very complicated.

The idols of the Den are that class of prejudices arising from the peculiar physical and educational disposition of the individual.

The idols of the Forum are those arising from a special social surrounding, and from language, 'Men think that their reason governs their words, whereas words govern their reason.'

The idols of the Theatre are those arising from the different dogmas of certain schools. They are the numerous imitations of reality on this great stage, and each actor retains the peculiar stage-walk and gesture and accent of his play, in work, promenade, and conversation of common life.

2. All human thought, all mental energy, is to be directed not upon futile attempts to cognise divine things, but mentally to reflect nature. And Bacon is not satisfied with the mere cognition of nature—he has an immediate aim for this study, the aim to him of all philosophy, namely, to subject nature to human use, to acquire mastery of nature, the regnum hominis. The eminently practical character of English thought is manifest in this conception.

3. But we must not trust to mere verbal investigation in order thus to gain power over nature; nor must we depend upon chance, stray experience-but we must seek for experience and discovery, wittingly and systematically: we must make Experiments. Our senses again deceive us, and this fact has ever been the great buttress of Scepticism; therefore do not trust merely

to your own impressions, but call upon Instruments to aid and rectify the evidence of your senses.

4. Experimentation is to be practised methodically. This cannot be carried on according to the Aristotelian deductive method, which begins with general truths and reasons down to particulars. In opposition to this old method, Bacon now develops his inductive method, which aims at acquiring general knowledge from particular cases. Bacon observes that the enumeration of all the cases in favour of a supposed law is not enough : we must also look for negative instances, i.e. those which may disprove the generalisation. A person (e.g.) finds that on several occasions some member of his circle of acquaintance dies at the moment a piece of furniture cracks. He thinks of all the instances which manifest this strange contiguity of events; and if he be a superstitious person, he will make a hasty generalisation upon these few positive instances, and say that 'whenever a mirror cracks, some misfortune is sure to befall him.' In this case the generalisation has been made on the strength of several, perhaps of five, instances in the person's life. He has neglected to subtract the numerous, it may be a hundred or more, negative instances, cases in which a piece of furniture cracked, and still no person of his acquaintance died. It is not surprising that I should meet friends fifty times after thinking of them, when I have thought of friends without meeting them many thousand times.

But it is impossible for us, limited in time and physical power as we are, to enumerate all instances relating to a certain case. We must therefore choose