The Scope of Our New Philosophy

¹²⁷ Are we perfecting natural philosophy[102] alone according to our method? Or the other sciences also, such as logic, ethics, politics?

We certainly intend to comprehend them all.

Common logic regulates matters by syllogisms.

• It is applied to all sciences.
• And so our inductive method likewise comprehends them all.[68]

For we form a history and tables of invention for anger, fear, shame, and the like, and also for examples in civil life, and the mental operations of memory, composition, division, judgment, and the rest, as well as for heat and cold, light, vegetation, and the like.

Our method of interpretation, after preparing and arranging a history, does not content itself with examining the operations and disquisitions of the mind like common logic.

• It also inspects the nature of things.

This is why we:

• so regulate the mind that it may be enabled to apply itself in every respect correctly to that nature.
• deliver numerous and various precepts in our doctrine of interpretation, so that they may apply in some[103] measure to the method of discovering the quality and condition of the subject matter of investigation.

¹²⁸ Let none even doubt whether we are anxious to destroy and demolish the philosophy, arts, and sciences, which are now in use.

On the contrary, we readily cherish their practice, cultivation, and honor. We do not interfere to prevent the prevalent system from encouraging discussion, adorning discourses, or being employed serviceably in the chair of the professor or the practice of common life, and being taken, in short, by general consent as current coin.

We plainly declare that the system we offer will not be very suitable for such purposes, not being easily adapted to vulgar apprehensions, except by effects and works.

To show our sincerity in professing our regard and friendly disposition toward the received sciences, we can refer to the evidence of our published writings (especially our books on the Advancement of Learning).

We will not, therefore, endeavor to evince it any further by words; but content ourselves with steadily and professedly premising, that no great progress can be made by the present methods in the theory or contemplation of science, and that they cannot be made to produce any very abundant effects.

¹²⁹

1. The introduction of great inventions appears one of the most distinguished of human actions

The ancients assigned:

• divine honors to inventors
• but only heroic honors to those who displayed civil merit (such as the founders of cities and empire legislators, the deliverers of their country from lasting misfortunes, the quellers of tyrants, and the like).

The judgment of antiquity is correct. The benefits derived from inventions may extend to mankind in general. But civil benefits to particular spots alone; the latter, moreover, last but for a time, the former forever.

Civil reformation seldom is carried on without violence and confusion, while inventions are a blessing and a benefit without injuring or afflicting any.

Inventions are also, as it were, new creations and imitations of divine works, as was expressed by the poet:[69]

“Primum frugiferos fœtus mortalibus ægris Dididerant quondam præstanti nomine Athenæ Et recreaverunt vitam legesque rogarunt.”

Solomon flourished in:

• his empire
• wealth[105]
• the magnificence of his works
• his court
• his household
• the splendor of his name
• the most unbounded admiration of mankind.

Yet he still placed his glory in none of these. Instead, he declared[70] that it is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the glory of a king to search it out.

Again, let any one but consider the immense difference between men’s lives in the most polished countries of Europe, and in any wild and barbarous region of the new Indies, he will think it so great, that man may be said to be a god unto man, not only on account of mutual aid and benefits, but from their comparative states—the result of the arts, and not of the soil or climate.

We should notice the force, effect, and consequences of inventions, the greatest of which are:

• printing
• gunpowder
• the compass.

These three have changed the appearance and state of the world

• in literature
• in warfare
• in navigation

Innumerable changes have been thence derived, so that no empire, sect, or star, appears to have exercised a greater power and influence on human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.

It will, perhaps, be as well to distinguish three species and degrees of ambition.

1. That of men who are anxious to enlarge their own power in their country, which is a vulgar and degenerate kind; next, that of men who strive to enlarge the power and empire of their country over mankind, which is more dignified but not less covetous; but if one were to endeavor to renew and enlarge the power and empire of mankind in general over the universe, such ambition[106] (if it may be so termed) is both more sound and more noble than the other two.

Now the empire of man over things is founded on the arts and sciences alone, for nature is only to be commanded by obeying her.

Besides this, if the benefit of any particular invention has had such an effect as to induce men to consider him greater than a man, who has thus obliged the whole race, how much more exalted will that discovery be, which leads to the easy discovery of everything else!

Yet (to speak the truth) in the same manner as we are very thankful for light which enables us to enter on our way, to practice arts, to read, to distinguish each other, and yet sight is more excellent and beautiful than the various uses of light; so is the contemplation of things as they are, free from superstition or imposture, error or confusion, much more dignified in itself than all the advantage to be derived from discoveries.

Lastly, no one should be alarmed at the objection of the arts and sciences becoming depraved to malevolent or luxurious purposes and the like. This is because the same can be said of every worldly good such as talent, courage, strength, beauty, riches, light itself, etc.

Mankind should:

• regain their rights over nature, assigned to them by the gift of God
• obtain that power, whose exercise will be governed by right reason and true religion.

¹³⁰ We lay down the art of interpreting nature, to which we attribute no absolute necessity (as if nothing could be done without it) nor perfection, although we think that our precepts are most useful and correct.

We believe that if men had at their command a proper history of nature and experience, and would apply themselves steadily to it, and could bind themselves to two things:

1. to lay aside received[107] opinions and notions;
2. to restrain themselves, till the proper season, from generalization, they might, by the proper and genuine exertion of their minds, fall into our way of interpretation without the aid of any art.

For interpretation is the true and natural act of the mind, when all obstacles are removed: certainly, however, everything will be more ready and better fixed by our precepts.

Yet do we not affirm that no addition can be made to them; on the contrary, considering the mind in its connection with things, and not merely relatively to its own powers, we ought to be persuaded that the art of invention can be made to grow with the inventions themselves.