Beacon Lights of History, Volume 3 part 2: Renaissance and ReformationLord, John
History
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 3 part 2: Renaissance and Reformation
Lord, John
History
gravitation from the fall of an apple; when Leverrier sought for a
new planet from the perturbations of the heavenly bodies in their
orbits,--we feel that deduction is as much a legitimate process as
induction itself.
But deductive logic is the creation of Aristotle; and it was the
authority of Aristotle that Bacon sought to subvert. The inductive
process is also old, of which Bacon is called the father. How are
these things to be reconciled and explained? Wherein and how did
Bacon adapt his method to the discovery of truth, which was his
principal aim,--that method which is the great cause of modern
progress in science, the way to it being indicated by him pre-
eminently?
The whole thing consists in this, that Bacon pointed out the right
road to truth,--as a board where two roads meet or diverge
indicates the one which is to be followed. He did not make a
system, like Descartes or Spinoza or Newton: he showed the way to
make it on sound principles. "He laid down a systematic analysis
and arrangement of inductive evidence." The syllogism, the great
instrument used by Aristotle and the Schoolmen, "is, from its very
nature, incompetent to prove the ultimate premises from which it
proceeds; and when the truth of these remains doubtful, we can
place no confidence in the conclusions drawn from them." Hence,
the first step in the reform of science is to review its ultimate
principles; and the first condition of a scientific method is that
it shall be competent to conduct such an inquiry; and this method
is applicable, not to physical science merely, but to the whole
realm of knowledge. This, of course, includes poetry, art,
intellectual philosophy, and theology, as well as geology and
chemistry.
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