| Aristotelian logic rests upon a | metaphysics which believes that | sensible experience gives the human | mind the things as they are, with | their essential qualities, and that | philosophy can be satisfied with | taking empirical phenomena for the | true reality of nature, thanks to a | mere generalization that erases the | particular circumstances of | existence. Nevertheless, empirically | qualified existences are not to be | mistaken for the things themselves. | So far, Bacon is undoubtedly a | modern, since he claims that the | object of knowledge is reality and | that reality, if it can be | inductively known from empirical | data, cannot be reduced to the matter | of experience. | | Bacon's fourth censure of the old | logic follows from this. He agrees | with the sixteenth-century | dialecticians that Aristotle was | wrong when he thought that | understanding could skip, without the | hard work of induction, from what is | immediately given to the senses to | what is posed in the first principles | of science. Aristotle wanted to know | the truth, but did not explain the | method of invention. On the other | hand, the dialecticians, giving up | the attempt to set up the first | principles (and thereby the | traditional Aristotelian | demonstrative science), gave up any