ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS BACON BY THOMAS FOWLER, M.A., F.S.A. PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD; FELLOW OF NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 27 AND 29 WEST 23D STREET 1881 PREFACE. THE object of this book is to present the character of the revolution which Bacon endeavoured to effect in scientific method, as well as the nature of his philosophical opinions generally, in a form intelligible and interesting to readers who have no technical acquaintance with logic or philosophy. The ground-plan of Bacon's work and the leading ideas with which he was inspired seem to me easily comprehensible by any person who has a general interest in the history and progress of thought. And the place of Bacon, standing mid-way between the old times and the new, is one which cannot be neglected by any one who is desirous of informing himself of the manner in which our modern ideas in science, in philosophy, and in logic have grown out of those which, for so many centuries prior to the Renaissance, held almost undisputed sway over the civilized world. Those who are induced to go more deeply into the topics treated in these chapters may be referred to my edition of Bacon's Novum Organum (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1878), and to the valuable edition of Bacon's Philosophical Works, contained in the first five volumes of Ellis and Spedding's Bacon (Longmans and Co.). To the Delegates of the Clarendon Press I have to express my obligations for the free use which they have allowed me to make of the Introduction and Notes to my edition of the Novum Organum. I have sometimes embodied in this work several pages of the Introduction, though it must, of course, a |