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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._D._Broad
"True and fruitful science must combine rationalism with empiricism, and be like the bee who gathers materials from every flower and then works them up by her own activities into honey. This marriage between rationalism and empiricism, and this discovery of a new method, are the tasks which Bacon set before himself. The times are peculiarly favourable, and he feels that he has the necessary qualifications. He will bring about the Great Instauration and will show men how to win back that dominion over Nature which was lost at the Fall."
"According to Bacon there are three subjects which need for their complete treatment data that spring from a supernatural source. These are Theology, Ethics, and Psychology. Each of these sciences can, however, be carried to a certain length without appeal to revelation. Each of them therefore divides into a natural and a revealed part. Theology is the most fundamental of the three, since the parts of Ethics and of Psychology which depend on revelation are branches of Revealed Theology.
Bacon holds that the existence of teleology in Nature is an obvious fact, and that the investigation of final causes is a perfectly legitimate branch of Natural Philosophy."
"Bacon has been acclaimed by the French Encyclopaedists, and abused by Joseph de Maistre, as an esprit fort who concealed his real atheism and materialism under a thin disguise of orthodoxy which sufficed to deceive the Wisest Fool in Christendom. Neither acclamation nor abuse is justified. It is evident that he was a sincere if unenthusiastic Christian of that sensible school which regards the Church of England as a branch of the Civil Service, and the Archbishop of Canterbury as the British Minister for Divine Affairs."
"We come now to another important assertion which Bacon makes about forms. The form of a given simple nature is not merely something which is always present when the nature is present and absent when it is absent. The form must in addition be "a limitation of some more general nature, as of a true and real genus." The form of heat, e.g., is one species of motion, viz., the violent irregular motion of molecules. The form of colour would be another species of motion, e.g., the periodic variation of electro-magnetic forces. And the form of redness would be a still more specific kind of motion, e.g., a periodic variation of such forces with its frequency confined within a certain narrow range. This is a vitally important point, for it marks the division between mediaeval and modern Natural Philosophy . A mediaeval physicist would recognise a large number of different powers in bodies, just as we do. But each of these powers would be for him a distinct and ultimate faculty. In this respect modern psychology, with all its boasting, is in much the same position as mediaeval physics. For us these various powers of matter reduce to so many specific kinds of minute structure and movement. The whole progress of modern physics depends on the clear recognition of this fundamental fact; and the absence of any similar progress in psychology is due to our inability up to the present to conceive the faculties of the mind in similar terms.."
"No body is ever at rest both as a whole and in its parts; what appears as rest is merely a balance of motions. The efficient and material causes which we recognise in daily life are merely the outstanding and easily perceptible phases in processes which are perfectly continuous and for the most part escape the senses. Every natural result depends on factors which are too small to be perceived by the naked eye, and no one need hope to govern Nature if he confines his attention to macroscopic phenomena. Bacon holds that our present knowledge of Latent Structure is very imperfect, but that our knowledge of Latent Process is far more so. Until we consider Nature in its dynamical as well as its statical aspect we shall neither understand it theoretically nor control it practically."
"There are certain innate sources of error common to the human race. Bacon calls these Idols of the Tribe. The most important of them are the following. Men tend to impose certain human ideas of order, fitness, and simplicity on external Nature. They tend to notice facts which support their existing beliefs and to ignore or pervert those which conflict with them. The last thing that they think of doing is deliberately to seek for exceptions so as to try their beliefs as by fire. The human intellect is at once lazy and restless. It still tries to explain and analyst when it has reached what is ultimate and simple, and yet it is content to couch its explanations in terms of what is gross enough for the unaided senses to perceive. It is "no dry light," but is constantly affected by the will and the emotions. And, finally, lt is given to reifying abstractions and to substantialising mere occurrents. Very closely connected in their effects with Idols of the Tribe are those of the Market-Place. These are the associations of current words and phrases which have crept insensibly into the mind from infancy through our intercourse with our fellows. Words and phrases represent the analyses of facts which were made by our remote ancestors. Some of them are names for non-existent things or for inappropriate concepts based on bad observations and false theories. They are thus crystallised errors, all the more dangerous because we do not recognise that they embody theories at all. Idols of the Cave are innate or acquired sources of error or bias peculiar to individuals."
"The senses have two defects, one positive and the other negative. The positive defect is that there is always a subjective element in sensations; they represent things as they affect a particular organism in a particular place and not simply as they are in Nature. The negative defect is that the senses respond delicately only to a very narrow range of stimuli. They overlook what is very small or distant or swift or slow or weak or intense. Bacon holds that these negative defects can be largely overcome by the use of instruments and by other devices which he discusses very acutely in the Novum Organum under the name of Instances of the Lamp. The subjective element again can be eliminated by judicious comparisons between one sense and another and one percipient and another. The deliveries of the senses, when thus supplemented and neutralised, are the solid and indispensable foundation of all scientific knowledge. But Bacon adds the extremely important remark that in a well-devised experiment the office of sensation is reduced to a minimum. "The senses," he says, "decide touching the experiment only, and the experiment touching the point in Nature and the thing itself."
"We must not jump from particular facts to sweeping generalities and then deduce propositions of medium generality from these. The right process is a very gradual ascent from particulars through middle principles to the highest laws and a very gradual descent from these to new middle principles and finally to new particulars. At every stage of the upward process the generalisation is to cover the then known facts and to extend a very little way beyond them, and this small extension is to be tested by a fresh appeal to experience. Thus the ascending and the descending process, like the movements of the angels on Jacob's ladder, take place side by side; and the latter is the means of testing the validity of the former. Bacon does, however, allow to the weaker brethren an inferior method, viz., a direct passage from one experiment to another partly analogous experiment. This he calls Instructed Experience. He enumerates eight general methods of Instructed Experience, such as applying the old process to new materials or, conversely, applying the same process a second time to the products of its first application (as in redistillation), inverting one of the agents (e.g., substituting cold for heat), and so on. And he makes extremely judicious observations on the fallacies to be avoided. He evidently holds that Instructed Experience is a useful preparation for the true method, which he calls the Formula of Interpretation, but that only the latter will lead to far-reaching discoveries and inventions.
We must substitute for induction by simple enumeration a method which makes use of negative instances and arrives at truth by successive elimination of false alternatives. Our ultimate aim is to discover the forms of simple natures, But only God, and perhaps the angels, can have a direct positive knowledge of forms; men must proceed by rejection and exclusion. Now the form of a simple nature will always be present when the nature is present, absent when it is absent, and varying when it varies. We must therefore draw up comparative tables of cases in which the given nature is present, of cases in which it is absent, and of cases in which its degree varies. We shall then know that the form cannot be anything that is absent in the first list or present in the second list or constant in the third list. By this means we may gradually eliminate all other natures and be left with the form which we are seeking.
It is evident that this is equivalent to Mill's Joint Method of Agreement and Difference, supplemented by his Method of Concomitant Variations. Bacon, like Mill, thought that results which are certain and not merely probable could be reached in this way. But he was far more alive to the difficulties than Mill. We cannot be sure that the natures which we take to be simple really are so. And we have not at present any list of the simple natures in the Universe which is known to be exhaustive. Until these defects have been rectified no certain results can be reached, as Bacon clearly sees. Again, unless some means can be found for abridging our Tables the work will be endless; for the Table of Absence will be a mere hotch-potch of heterogeneous items."
"Was Bacon a great scientist who discovered new facts and established physical theories which form the basis of modern science? Most certainly not. As regards experiment and observation he "never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one." He seems to have been an incompetent but pertinacious experimenter; and in his Natural Histories he breaks all his own rules, copying quite uncritically a jumble of facts and fables from other writers. His incapacity in mathematics prevented him from understanding the best work of his contemporaries, and a fortiori made it impossible for him to state or work out far-reaching physical theories himself.
Granted that modern science does not owe any important facts or special theories to Bacon, does it derive its general methods and its general outlook on the world from him? This is a question of historical causation which must be answered with a decided negative. So far as I can see, the actual course which science has taken, even if it has been in accord with Bacon's principles and has led to the results which he desired and anticipated, has been influenced little if at all by his writings. I suspect that the popularity of the opposite view is due to the magnificent advertisement which Bacon received from D'Alembert and the French Encyclopaedists, who found it convenient to march into battle under his ensign. If then Bacon be the father of the method and outlook of modern science he is so by spiritual affinity rather than by natural generation.
Granted that Bacon's actual influence has been over-rated, did he in fact discover and state explicitly those methods and principles of scientific research and inductive proof which scientists implicitly use with so much success? It seems to me that the honours of stating these methods and principles are pretty evenly divided between Bacon and Descartes. Up to a point they cover much the same ground. There is considerable analogy between the destructive part of Bacon's method and Descartes' systematic doubt. Here Bacon can be praised without reserve; he discusses in far greater detail than Descartes the causes of human error and the remedies for it, and his treatment is exhaustive, profound, and illuminating. Again, Descartes, in the Regulae, agrees with Bacon in recognising the importance of the Principle of Limited Variety. After this point the two methodologies diverge, and the truth is divided between them. Each is strong where the other is weak. Bacon is paralysed whenever he touches mathematics, pure or applied. He has no theory of mathematical reasoning and was ignorant of the swift advances that pure mathematics was making. He verbally recognises the importance of applied mathematics; but he failed to see how predominant a part mathematical statement and deduction must play in physics if anything like his theory of forms is to work. Here Descartes is strong with the strength of a man who has himself invented a method which in his own hands has revolutionized geometry and mechanics. On the other hand, Descartes is as helpless over induction as Bacon is over mathematical deduction. In his analysis of inductive arguments Bacon was, so far as I know, breaking new ground, and all later discussion has followed on his lines. That the constructive side of his method is incomplete is admitted by himself. We can see that its main defects are the following. Under the most favourable circumstances possible Bacon's method of exclusions would not suffice to discover the form of a simple nature, but at most empirical laws connecting one simple nature with another. A form is not one among the physical properties which can be perceived to be present or absent in a thing; it is the hypothetical structural and motional basis of a perceptible property. It follows that forms can be established only by hypothesis, mathematical deduction of observable consequences, and subsequent verification of these by actual observation. Closely connected with this fact is Bacon's other great defect. He never clearly distinguished between approaching facts with a prejudice and approaching them with a working hypothesis. He is so anxious to avoid the former that he fails to see that no progress can be made without the latter. Whewell's great contribution to the theory of induction was to point out the importance of the appropriate colligating concept and the fruitful working hypothesis. And these are just the points at which rules and methods fail us and the insight of individual genius comes into its own, though that genius must be trained in the methods and soaked with the facts of science.
Lastly, did Bacon provide any logical justification for the principles and methods which he elicited and which scientists assume and use ? He did not, and he never saw that it was necessary to do so. There is a skeleton in the cupboard of Inductive Logic, which Bacon never suspected and Hume first exposed to view. Kant conducted the most elaborate funeral in history, and called Heaven and Earth and the Noumena under the Earth to witness that the skeleton was finally disposed of. But, when the dust of the funeral procession had subsided and the last strains of the Transcendental Organ had died away, the coffin was found to be empty and the skeleton in its old place. Mill discretely closed the door of the cupboard, and with infinite tact turned the conversation into more cheerful channels. Mr Johnson and Mr Keynes may fairly be said to have reduced the skeleton to the dimensions of a mere skull. But that obstinate caput mortuum still awaits the undertaker who will give it Christian burial. May we venture to hope that when Bacon's next centenary is celebrated the great work which he set going will be completed; and that Inductive Reasoning, which has long been the glory of Science, will have ceased to be the scandal of Philosophy ?"
-Charlie Dunbar Broad, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon, 1926: http://www.ditext.com/broad/bacon.html
"True and fruitful science must combine rationalism with empiricism, and be like the bee who gathers materials from every flower and then works them up by her own activities into honey. This marriage between rationalism and empiricism, and this discovery of a new method, are the tasks which Bacon set before himself. The times are peculiarly favourable, and he feels that he has the necessary qualifications. He will bring about the Great Instauration and will show men how to win back that dominion over Nature which was lost at the Fall."
"According to Bacon there are three subjects which need for their complete treatment data that spring from a supernatural source. These are Theology, Ethics, and Psychology. Each of these sciences can, however, be carried to a certain length without appeal to revelation. Each of them therefore divides into a natural and a revealed part. Theology is the most fundamental of the three, since the parts of Ethics and of Psychology which depend on revelation are branches of Revealed Theology.
Bacon holds that the existence of teleology in Nature is an obvious fact, and that the investigation of final causes is a perfectly legitimate branch of Natural Philosophy."
"Bacon has been acclaimed by the French Encyclopaedists, and abused by Joseph de Maistre, as an esprit fort who concealed his real atheism and materialism under a thin disguise of orthodoxy which sufficed to deceive the Wisest Fool in Christendom. Neither acclamation nor abuse is justified. It is evident that he was a sincere if unenthusiastic Christian of that sensible school which regards the Church of England as a branch of the Civil Service, and the Archbishop of Canterbury as the British Minister for Divine Affairs."
"We come now to another important assertion which Bacon makes about forms. The form of a given simple nature is not merely something which is always present when the nature is present and absent when it is absent. The form must in addition be "a limitation of some more general nature, as of a true and real genus." The form of heat, e.g., is one species of motion, viz., the violent irregular motion of molecules. The form of colour would be another species of motion, e.g., the periodic variation of electro-magnetic forces. And the form of redness would be a still more specific kind of motion, e.g., a periodic variation of such forces with its frequency confined within a certain narrow range. This is a vitally important point, for it marks the division between mediaeval and modern Natural Philosophy . A mediaeval physicist would recognise a large number of different powers in bodies, just as we do. But each of these powers would be for him a distinct and ultimate faculty. In this respect modern psychology, with all its boasting, is in much the same position as mediaeval physics. For us these various powers of matter reduce to so many specific kinds of minute structure and movement. The whole progress of modern physics depends on the clear recognition of this fundamental fact; and the absence of any similar progress in psychology is due to our inability up to the present to conceive the faculties of the mind in similar terms.."
"No body is ever at rest both as a whole and in its parts; what appears as rest is merely a balance of motions. The efficient and material causes which we recognise in daily life are merely the outstanding and easily perceptible phases in processes which are perfectly continuous and for the most part escape the senses. Every natural result depends on factors which are too small to be perceived by the naked eye, and no one need hope to govern Nature if he confines his attention to macroscopic phenomena. Bacon holds that our present knowledge of Latent Structure is very imperfect, but that our knowledge of Latent Process is far more so. Until we consider Nature in its dynamical as well as its statical aspect we shall neither understand it theoretically nor control it practically."
"There are certain innate sources of error common to the human race. Bacon calls these Idols of the Tribe. The most important of them are the following. Men tend to impose certain human ideas of order, fitness, and simplicity on external Nature. They tend to notice facts which support their existing beliefs and to ignore or pervert those which conflict with them. The last thing that they think of doing is deliberately to seek for exceptions so as to try their beliefs as by fire. The human intellect is at once lazy and restless. It still tries to explain and analyst when it has reached what is ultimate and simple, and yet it is content to couch its explanations in terms of what is gross enough for the unaided senses to perceive. It is "no dry light," but is constantly affected by the will and the emotions. And, finally, lt is given to reifying abstractions and to substantialising mere occurrents. Very closely connected in their effects with Idols of the Tribe are those of the Market-Place. These are the associations of current words and phrases which have crept insensibly into the mind from infancy through our intercourse with our fellows. Words and phrases represent the analyses of facts which were made by our remote ancestors. Some of them are names for non-existent things or for inappropriate concepts based on bad observations and false theories. They are thus crystallised errors, all the more dangerous because we do not recognise that they embody theories at all. Idols of the Cave are innate or acquired sources of error or bias peculiar to individuals."
"The senses have two defects, one positive and the other negative. The positive defect is that there is always a subjective element in sensations; they represent things as they affect a particular organism in a particular place and not simply as they are in Nature. The negative defect is that the senses respond delicately only to a very narrow range of stimuli. They overlook what is very small or distant or swift or slow or weak or intense. Bacon holds that these negative defects can be largely overcome by the use of instruments and by other devices which he discusses very acutely in the Novum Organum under the name of Instances of the Lamp. The subjective element again can be eliminated by judicious comparisons between one sense and another and one percipient and another. The deliveries of the senses, when thus supplemented and neutralised, are the solid and indispensable foundation of all scientific knowledge. But Bacon adds the extremely important remark that in a well-devised experiment the office of sensation is reduced to a minimum. "The senses," he says, "decide touching the experiment only, and the experiment touching the point in Nature and the thing itself."
"We must not jump from particular facts to sweeping generalities and then deduce propositions of medium generality from these. The right process is a very gradual ascent from particulars through middle principles to the highest laws and a very gradual descent from these to new middle principles and finally to new particulars. At every stage of the upward process the generalisation is to cover the then known facts and to extend a very little way beyond them, and this small extension is to be tested by a fresh appeal to experience. Thus the ascending and the descending process, like the movements of the angels on Jacob's ladder, take place side by side; and the latter is the means of testing the validity of the former. Bacon does, however, allow to the weaker brethren an inferior method, viz., a direct passage from one experiment to another partly analogous experiment. This he calls Instructed Experience. He enumerates eight general methods of Instructed Experience, such as applying the old process to new materials or, conversely, applying the same process a second time to the products of its first application (as in redistillation), inverting one of the agents (e.g., substituting cold for heat), and so on. And he makes extremely judicious observations on the fallacies to be avoided. He evidently holds that Instructed Experience is a useful preparation for the true method, which he calls the Formula of Interpretation, but that only the latter will lead to far-reaching discoveries and inventions.
We must substitute for induction by simple enumeration a method which makes use of negative instances and arrives at truth by successive elimination of false alternatives. Our ultimate aim is to discover the forms of simple natures, But only God, and perhaps the angels, can have a direct positive knowledge of forms; men must proceed by rejection and exclusion. Now the form of a simple nature will always be present when the nature is present, absent when it is absent, and varying when it varies. We must therefore draw up comparative tables of cases in which the given nature is present, of cases in which it is absent, and of cases in which its degree varies. We shall then know that the form cannot be anything that is absent in the first list or present in the second list or constant in the third list. By this means we may gradually eliminate all other natures and be left with the form which we are seeking.
It is evident that this is equivalent to Mill's Joint Method of Agreement and Difference, supplemented by his Method of Concomitant Variations. Bacon, like Mill, thought that results which are certain and not merely probable could be reached in this way. But he was far more alive to the difficulties than Mill. We cannot be sure that the natures which we take to be simple really are so. And we have not at present any list of the simple natures in the Universe which is known to be exhaustive. Until these defects have been rectified no certain results can be reached, as Bacon clearly sees. Again, unless some means can be found for abridging our Tables the work will be endless; for the Table of Absence will be a mere hotch-potch of heterogeneous items."
"Was Bacon a great scientist who discovered new facts and established physical theories which form the basis of modern science? Most certainly not. As regards experiment and observation he "never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one." He seems to have been an incompetent but pertinacious experimenter; and in his Natural Histories he breaks all his own rules, copying quite uncritically a jumble of facts and fables from other writers. His incapacity in mathematics prevented him from understanding the best work of his contemporaries, and a fortiori made it impossible for him to state or work out far-reaching physical theories himself.
Granted that modern science does not owe any important facts or special theories to Bacon, does it derive its general methods and its general outlook on the world from him? This is a question of historical causation which must be answered with a decided negative. So far as I can see, the actual course which science has taken, even if it has been in accord with Bacon's principles and has led to the results which he desired and anticipated, has been influenced little if at all by his writings. I suspect that the popularity of the opposite view is due to the magnificent advertisement which Bacon received from D'Alembert and the French Encyclopaedists, who found it convenient to march into battle under his ensign. If then Bacon be the father of the method and outlook of modern science he is so by spiritual affinity rather than by natural generation.
Granted that Bacon's actual influence has been over-rated, did he in fact discover and state explicitly those methods and principles of scientific research and inductive proof which scientists implicitly use with so much success? It seems to me that the honours of stating these methods and principles are pretty evenly divided between Bacon and Descartes. Up to a point they cover much the same ground. There is considerable analogy between the destructive part of Bacon's method and Descartes' systematic doubt. Here Bacon can be praised without reserve; he discusses in far greater detail than Descartes the causes of human error and the remedies for it, and his treatment is exhaustive, profound, and illuminating. Again, Descartes, in the Regulae, agrees with Bacon in recognising the importance of the Principle of Limited Variety. After this point the two methodologies diverge, and the truth is divided between them. Each is strong where the other is weak. Bacon is paralysed whenever he touches mathematics, pure or applied. He has no theory of mathematical reasoning and was ignorant of the swift advances that pure mathematics was making. He verbally recognises the importance of applied mathematics; but he failed to see how predominant a part mathematical statement and deduction must play in physics if anything like his theory of forms is to work. Here Descartes is strong with the strength of a man who has himself invented a method which in his own hands has revolutionized geometry and mechanics. On the other hand, Descartes is as helpless over induction as Bacon is over mathematical deduction. In his analysis of inductive arguments Bacon was, so far as I know, breaking new ground, and all later discussion has followed on his lines. That the constructive side of his method is incomplete is admitted by himself. We can see that its main defects are the following. Under the most favourable circumstances possible Bacon's method of exclusions would not suffice to discover the form of a simple nature, but at most empirical laws connecting one simple nature with another. A form is not one among the physical properties which can be perceived to be present or absent in a thing; it is the hypothetical structural and motional basis of a perceptible property. It follows that forms can be established only by hypothesis, mathematical deduction of observable consequences, and subsequent verification of these by actual observation. Closely connected with this fact is Bacon's other great defect. He never clearly distinguished between approaching facts with a prejudice and approaching them with a working hypothesis. He is so anxious to avoid the former that he fails to see that no progress can be made without the latter. Whewell's great contribution to the theory of induction was to point out the importance of the appropriate colligating concept and the fruitful working hypothesis. And these are just the points at which rules and methods fail us and the insight of individual genius comes into its own, though that genius must be trained in the methods and soaked with the facts of science.
Lastly, did Bacon provide any logical justification for the principles and methods which he elicited and which scientists assume and use ? He did not, and he never saw that it was necessary to do so. There is a skeleton in the cupboard of Inductive Logic, which Bacon never suspected and Hume first exposed to view. Kant conducted the most elaborate funeral in history, and called Heaven and Earth and the Noumena under the Earth to witness that the skeleton was finally disposed of. But, when the dust of the funeral procession had subsided and the last strains of the Transcendental Organ had died away, the coffin was found to be empty and the skeleton in its old place. Mill discretely closed the door of the cupboard, and with infinite tact turned the conversation into more cheerful channels. Mr Johnson and Mr Keynes may fairly be said to have reduced the skeleton to the dimensions of a mere skull. But that obstinate caput mortuum still awaits the undertaker who will give it Christian burial. May we venture to hope that when Bacon's next centenary is celebrated the great work which he set going will be completed; and that Inductive Reasoning, which has long been the glory of Science, will have ceased to be the scandal of Philosophy ?"
-Charlie Dunbar Broad, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon, 1926: http://www.ditext.com/broad/bacon.html
