Francis Bacon of Verulam: Realistic Philosophy and Its Age
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Francis Bacon of Verulam: Realistic Philosophy and Its Age Details
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.THE theatre of modern philosophy is a field of battle, wherein two opposite and hostile ten dencies—Realism and Idealism—contend with each other in asserting claims to truth. These tendencies are not merely systems, but kinds of philosophy that in no age but a modern one could become so conscious of their mutual differ ence, or so definitely and clearly express it. If we were to compare scientific with dramatic op position, the realists and idealists would be the two adverse choruses in the drama of modern philosophy. The opposite parties will not be silent until their union is effected, until the modes of thought, now strained against each other, be come so interpenetrated, that both are saturated alike. For each lives only in the weaknesses and defects of its adversary. The boundaries between them will be passed when they are clearly under stood ; that is to say, when each party recognises the strength of its adversary, and appropriates it toitself. Many attempts to produce this result have been made during the first period of our philo sophy. If we accurately consider the matter, we shall find that realism and idealism, from the time of their modern origin, have described not parallel but convergent paths, which, at the same time, have met at one common point. This point at which the idealistic and realistic ten dencies crossed, as at a common vertex, was the Kantian philosophy, which has taken account of them both and united them in their elements. In this, as indeed in every respect, it has set up a standard, which must serve as a polar star to all subsequent philosophy. If,- at the present day, we are asked, how we shall follow the right track in philosophy, we must answer, by a most ac curate study of Kant. Since his time there has not been a philosopher of importance, who has not desired to be at once a realist and an Realist. If the name had been sufficient, the grt,. *• and all-pervading problem that occupies the mind of modern philosophy would have already been solved more than once..--CHAPTER I.BACON OF VERULAM AS A MORAL AND SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER.THE great intellectual achievements of a man are never so utterly distinct and separable from his life that he can be one person in his worldly career, and entirely another in the emanations of his mind. There is always a certain corre spondence between the moral and the scientific character, and a mistake has been made when the character of Bacon has been excepted from the law of such an analogy. On the other hand, this law would be very wrongly applied if we attributed certain moral blemishes and delin quencies affecting the life of Bacon to his scientifictendency, or from this tendency explained his moral course. Such a relation would be more than analogy, it would be a relation of cause and effect. Of such an immediate influence of the scientific upon the moral character, we can only speak with great caution, inasmuch as the moral character precedes the scientific in order of time, and human characters generally do not form themselves before the mirror of science. Nevertheless, there is between the two modes of expressing the mental individuality a natural homogeneity, which does not consist in the one following the other, but proceeds from this: that the genius of the man directs both to the same ends; for the genius of a great individual remains the same in all its utterances. Leibnitz, with his per sonal character, could never have become a phi losopher like Spinoza, nor Bacon like Descartes. The scientific direction pursued by Bacon fully corresponded to the peculiarity of his nature, to his wants and inclinations ; and this direction was greatly favoured by his moral disposition. Indeed, without such a cooperation of the mental powers, no great intellectual achievement is possible.It is wrong to blame or pity Bacon because, being a scientific character of the first rank, he was at the same time too ambitious to prefer the ...
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