analogous to instruments which produce reflection ", is, Bacon says, true in perspective, and also in acoustics; being true both of the eye and ear. Here we have a result of observation which is made to enter into two different sciences simply in virtue of the classification employed. For this axiom, if true, properly belongs to physiology, and neither to perspective nor to acoustics; though in a secondary and derivative manner a portion of the truth it includes may be introduced into these sciences. And so on. There is however one of these axioms which is of higher authority: "Quantum naturæ nec minuitur nec augetur"; which, Bacon says, is true not only in physics, but also in natural theology, if it be stated in a modified form; viz. if it be said that it belongs to Omnipotence to make something out of nothing, or vice versâ. Of this axiom it may be remarked, that it is common to physics and natural theology simply because the subjects of these sciences are in some measure common to both; wherein it differs from the Aristotelian conception of an axiom. But it is of more interest to observe that this axiom, of which the truth is derived from our notion of substance, and which can never be established by an empirical demonstration, is constantly quoted by Bacon as a principle of incontestable truth; of which his theory of specific gravities is in some sort only an application.

The question arises both with regard to this axiom and to the others, In what manner Bacon supposed that they ought to be demonstrated; or, if he thought they required no demonstration, in what manner he conceived that the mind apprehended their truth? He has certainly affirmed in express terms that there can be only two ways of arriving at truth, namely syllogism and induction; both of which are manifestly inapplicable to some at least of the principles which he includes in the philosophia prima. But whether he would have admitted that this dictum admits of exception in relation to these cases, or on the other hand had not been led to consider the nature of the difficulty which they present, we have, I think, no means of deciding. It is to be observed that the philosophia prima is spoken of as a collection (receptaculum) of axioms-a phrase which implies that it is not a science in itself, having its own principles and an independent development, but that, contrariwise, it derives from the contributions of other sciences the elements of which it is composed. Of the second part we are unable to speak more definitely than of the first. It is obviously a reflexion of the Aristotelian doctrine of the categories 51, from which, however, Bacon intended to contrast it by requiring that the "conditiones entium," which he has doubtless called transcendent from their applicability to all classes of objects, should be treated not logically but physically 52.

But then what are the questions to be resolved in this mode of treating them? Bacon gives some examples of the discussions which ought to occupy this part of philosophy. The first is, why there is so much of one kind of substance, and so little of another-why, for instance, so much more iron in the world than gold, &c. This belongs to the inquiry "de multo et parvo". Again, in treating "de simili et diverso ", it ought to be explained why between dissimilar species are almost always interposed others which partake of the nature of both, and form, as it were, ambiguous species-for instance, bats between birds and quadrupeds, or moss between corruption and plants, &c. The difficulty however which I have already mentioned in speaking of the other part of the philosophia prima recurs with reference to this, namely by what method were the questions here proposed to be answered? If by induction, by induction on what data ?`and if not, by what other way of arriving at truth?

The illustrations which Bacon has given, and perhaps his way of looking at the whole subject, connect themselves with what has recently been called palætiology. The questions which Bacon proposes are questions as to how that which actually exists, and which in the present order of things will continue to exist, came into being-whether abruptly or by slow transitions, and

51 Trendelenberg has accordingly quoted the passages in the De Augmentis which relate to it, in the historical part of his work on the categories.

52 De Augmentis iii. 4.

under what agency. He seems to point, though from a distance, to discussions as to the formation of strata and the succession of species. Yet on the other hand the discussion on Like and Unlike was to include at least one portion of a different character, namely why, in despite of the maxim "similia similibus gaudent", iron does not attract iron but the magnet, nor gold gold, but quicksilver.

(15) Another subject, sufficiently interesting to be here mentioned, though less connected with Bacon's general views, is the doctrine which he entertained touching the nature of the soul. He distinguishes in several parts of his writings between the animal soul, common, at least in kind, to man and to the brutes, and the immortal principle infused by the divine favour into man only 53. To the latter he gave the name of spiraculum, which was of course suggested by the text, "Spiravit in faciem ejus spiraculum vitæ ". M. Bouillet, in his edition of Bacon's philosophical works 54, condemns this doctrine of man's having two souls, and goes on to remark that Bacon was led to adopt it in deference to the opinions of the schoolmen, and that it is also sanctioned by S. Augustine. In these remarks he is much less accurate than usual; the truth being that the doctrine of the duality of the soul is condemned very strongly by S. Augustine and by the schoolmen, and that there is no doubt as to the source from which Bacon derived it, namely from the writings of Telesius. The notion of a lower soul, distinct in essence from the higher principle of man's nature, is in reality much older than Telesius. We find it for instance among the Manichees-a circumstance which makes it singular that S. Augustine should have been supposed to countenance it. Both in his work De Ecclesiæ Dogmatibus, and nearly in the same words in that De Anima, he rejects in the most precise and accurate manner the doctrine of two distinct souls, affirming that there is but one, which is at once the principle of nutrition, of sensation, and of reason. In opposing the tenets of the Manichæans, he has more than once condemned the same doctrine, though less at length than in the works just mentioned. The schoolmen also peremptorily rejected the doctrine which M. Bouillet has affirmed that Bacon derived from them. Thus S. Thomas Aquinas says, "Impossibile est in uno homine esse plures animas per essentiam differentes sed una tantum est anima intellectiva quæ vegetativæ et sensitivæ et intellectivæ officiis fungitur" 55. And this follows at once from the received opinion, that the soul is joined to the body as its form (ut forma unitur corpori). It would be easy to multiply citations to the same effect; but as no schoolman could venture to contradict an emphatically expressed opinion of S. Augustine, it appears unnecessary to do so 56.

Telesius of Cosenza, whom Bacon has commended as "the best of the novellists", was one of the Italian reformers of philosophy. Tennemann's remark that the reform which he attempted to introduce was but partial, as having reference only to the natural sciences, is not altogether accurate, but it describes with sufficient correctness the general character of his writings. They contain an attempt to explain all phenomena, including those of animal life, on the hypothesis of the continuous conflict and reciprocal action of two formal principles, heat and cold. His other doctrines are either subordinated to this kind of dualism, or are merely the necessary complements of a system of philosophy. In proposing to inquire into the nature and origin of the soul, he had no other end in view than to arrive at an explanation of the phenomena of sensation, voluntary motion, &c., which should be in accordance with his fundamental hypothesis. He therefore

53 De Augmentis iv. 3. 54 (Euvres Philosophiques de Bacon, Paris, 1834.-J. S. 55 S. Thom. Prim. Q. 76. a. 3. Concl.

56 With what bold ignorance the schoolmen are sometimes spoken of is well seen in Dr. Guhrauer's preface to his edition of Leibnitz De Principio Individui. The sixth proposition in the Corollarium attached to this disputation is as follows:-" Hominis solum una est anima quæ vegetativam et sensitivam virtualiter includat." The learned Doctor declares that in this statement Leibnitz set himself in direct opposition to the schoolmen, and that it contains the germ of Leibnitz's own psychology; the statement being almost a literal transcript of that of St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum i. Q. 76. a. 3: to which I have already referred. Leibnitz scarcely thought that in following the Angelic Doctor he was protesting against scholasticism.

sets out from the physiological point of view; and in order to explain the phenomena of animal and vegetable life, refers them to an indwelling spiritus, or animal soul, which in plants resides in the bark and fibres, and in animals in the white and exsanguine parts of the body, the bones being however excepted 57. The animal and vegetable souls are in essence alike, but the latter is "paulo quam qui in animalibus inest crassior". In both cases the origin of this anima is the same; it is educed from the seed (educta ex semine), and is to all intents as truly material as any other part of the body.

In the application of these views to the soul of man, Telesius was met by considerations of another order. The soul educed ex semine, was (like the body which it animated, and of which it was only the subtlest portion) propagated by generation; whereas it was decided by orthodox theology that souls are not ex traduce, do not pass from parent to child in the way Telesius must have supposed. The soul is a gift, which after death is to return to Him who gave it. I do not conceive that Telesius's attempt to co-ordinate this doctrine with his own views arose merely from a wish to avoid the imputation of heresy. His writings are, I think, free from that tone of mocking deference to authority by which those of many of his contemporaries are disfigured. They have, on the contrary, much of the melancholy earnestness which characterises those of his disciple Campanella. The difference between the faculties of men and brutes appeared to him to be such that merely a subtler organisation of the spiritus would be insufficient to account for it. Man's higher faculties are to be ascribed to a higher principle, and this can only be conceived of as a divinely formed soul. The question as to the relation between the two souls may be presented under two aspects, namely what are the faculties in man which ought to be ascribed to each of them? and again are these two souls wholly independent, and if not, how are they connected? The criterion by which Telesius would decide what ought to be reserved as the peculiar appanage of the divinely created soul, appears to be this that which in man is analogous to the faculties we recognise in brutes ought to be ascribed to the principle by which they are animated and which we possess in common with them. Whatever, on the contrary, seems peculiar to man, more especially the sense of right and wrong, which is the foundation of all morality, ought to be ascribed to the principle which it is our prerogative to possess 58. As to the connexion between the two, Telesius decides" both on grounds of human reason and from the authority of Scripture" that they cannot be wholly independent of each other, and he accordingly affirms that the divinely created soul is the Form of the whole body, and especially of the spiritus itself. That the soul is the Form of the body he could not without heresy deny 59, although he condemns Aristotle for saying so; asserting that Aristotle refers to the spiritus, and not to the true soul, with which probably he was unacquainted 60. The tendency of these views is towards materialism; the immaterial principle being annexed to the system, as it were, ab extra. Accordingly Telesius's disciple Donius, whom Bacon has more than once referred to, omits it altogether 61.

Comparing the views of Telesius with those of Bacon, we see that in both the duality of the soul is distinctly asserted, and that in both the animal soul is merely material 62. Our knowledge of the divinely derived principle must rest principally on revelation. Let this knowledge be drawn, he counsels us, from the same fountain of inspiration from whence the substance of the soul itself proceeded. Bacon rejects or at least omits Telesius's formula, that this higher soul is the

57 De Rerum Nat. v. 1. et vi. 26.

58 De Rerum Naturâ, v. 2.

59 The collection known as the Clementines contains an authoritative decision on this point. "Ut quisque deinceps asserere defendere aut tenere pertinaciter præsumpserit, quod anima rationalis non sit forma corporis humani per se et essentialiter tanquam hæreticus sit censendus". I quote from Vulpes on Duns Scotus, 46 a. 5. To this decision Telesius seems to allude, De Rer. Nat. v. 40. Campanella has expressly mentioned it.

60 De Rer. Nat. v. 3.

61 See his De Nat. Hominis.

62 Proceeding e matricibus elementorum, De Augm. iv. 3.

Form of the body-a formula to which either in his system or that of Telesius no definite sense could be attached. He differs from his predecessor in this also, that with him the spiritus is more a physiological and less a psychological hypothesis than with Telesius-it is at least less enwrapped in a psychological system than we find it in the De Rerum Naturâ.

On the other hand, he has not, I think, recognised so distinctly as Telesius or Campanella the principle that to the rational soul alone is to be referred the idea of moral responsibility; and the fine passage on the contrast of public and private good in the seventh book of the De Augmentis seems to show (if Bacon meant that the analogy on which it is based should be accepted as anything more than an illustration) that he conceived that something akin to the distinction of right and wrong is to be traced in the workings, conscious or unconscious, of all nature.

(16) We are here led to mention another subject, on which again the views of Telesius appear to have influenced those of Bacon. That all bodies are animated, that a principle of life pervades the whole universe, and that each portion, beside its participation in the life of the world, has also its proper vital principle, are doctrines to which in the time of Bacon the majority of philosophical reformers were at least strongly inclined. The most celebrated work in which they are set forth is perhaps the De Sensu Rerum of Campanella. The share which it had in producing the misfortunes of his life is well known, and need not here be noticed.

In one of his letters to Thomasius 63, Leibnitz points out how easy the transition is from the language which the schoolmen held touching substantial forms and the workings of nature to that of Campanella: "Ita reditur ad tot deunculos quot formas substantiales et Gentilem prope polytheismum. Et certe omnes qui de substantiis illis incorporalibus corporum loquuntur non possunt mentem suam explicare nisi translatione a Mentibus sumptâ. Hinc enim attributus illis appetitus vel instinctus ille naturalis ex quo et sequitur cognitio naturalis, hinc illud axioma: Natura nihil facit frustra, omnis res fugit sui destructionem, similia similibus gaudent, materia appetit formam nobiliorem, et alia id genus. Quum tamen reverâ in naturâ nulla sit sapientia, nullus appetitus, ordo vero pulcher ex eo oriatur, quia est horologium Dei ". To the censure implied in these remarks Aristotle is himself in some measure liable, seeing that he ascribed the various changes which go on around us to the half-conscious or unconscious workings of an indwelling power which pervades all things, and to which he gives the name of Nature. Nature does nothing in vain and of things possible realizes the best, but she does not act with conscious prevision. She is, so to speak, the instinct of the universe.

It is on account of these views that Bacon charges Aristotle with having set aside the doctrine of a providence, by putting Nature in the place of God 64. Nevertheless Bacon himself thought it possible to explain large classes of phenomena by referring them, not certainly to the workings of Nature, but to the instincts and appetites of individual bodies. His whole doctrine of simple motions is full of expressions which it is very difficult to understand without supposing that Bacon had for the time adopted the notion of universally diffused sensation. Thus the "motus nexûs" is that in virtue of which bodies, as delighting in mutual contact, will not suffer themselves to be separated. All bodies, we are told, abhor a solution of continuity, and the rising of cream is to be explained by the desire of homogeneous elements for one another.

The distinction which Bacon has elsewhere taken between sensation and perception, which corresponds to Leibnitz's distinction between apperception and perception, does not appear to accord with these expressions. He there asserts that inanimate bodies have perception without sensation. But such words as desrie and horror imply not only a change worked in the body to which they are applied in virtue of the presence of another, but also a sense of that presence,that is, in Bacon's language, not only perception but sensation.

The contrast between the expressions I have quoted and those of which he made use in other parts of his writings, is remarkable. In stating the doctrine of

63 P. 48. of Erdmann's edition of his philosophical works.

64 De Aug. iii. 4.

simple motions, he speaks as if all phenomena were to be explained by means of the desires and instincts of matter, every portion of which is more or less consciously sentient. But in other passages we find what at first appears to be a wholly different view, namely that phenomena are to be explained by the site, form, and configuration of atoms or ultimate particles, capable neither of desire nor fear, and in all their motions simply fulfilling the primary law impressed on them by Providence.

Nevertheless there is here no real inconsistency. For Bacon, following Telesius, ascribed all the phenomena of animal life to the spiritus, which, though it is the subtlest portion of the body which it animates, is notwithstanding as truly material as any other part. In every body, whether animated or not, dwells a portion of spirit, and it was natural therefore to ascribe to it some share of the powers which the more finely constituted spirits of animals were supposed to possess. How far however this analogy between animate and inanimate bodies ought to be carried, was a doubtful question; and we need not be surprised to find that Bacon sometimes denies and sometimes appears to admit that the latter as well as the former are, to a certain extent at least, consciously sentient. But in all cases he proposed to explain the phenomena of animal life by means of the ultimate constitution of matter. Thus such phenomena as the rising of cream, the subsidence of the lees of wine, the clinging of gold leaf round the finger, &c., were to be explained in the first instance by the instincts and appetites of portions of matter, and afterwards to receive a deeper and more fundamental explanation when these instincts and appetites were themselves shown to result from the site, form, and configuration of the ultimate particles of which all bodies are composed. To the doctrine of universally diffused sensation, so far as he adopted it, Bacon was led by the writings of many of his contemporaries, and in particular by those of Telesius. Brucker has remarked, and with perfect truth, that this doctrine is stated as distinctly, though not so conspicuously, by Telesius as by Campanella. Added to which this doctrine serves to explain phenomena of which, without it, no explanation could readily be given. Thus Bacon is much disposed to ridicule Gilbert for the pains he had bestowed on the subject of electrical attraction, affirming that it is merely the result of the power which friction possesses to excite the appetite of bodies for contact. This appetite " aerem non bene tolerat, sed aliud tangibile mavult ".

(17) Bacon's opinion as to Final Causes has often been discussed. It seems however scarcely necessary to refute the interpretation which on no just grounds has been given to the phrase, "causarum finalium inquisitio tanquam virgo Deo consecrata nihil parit 65". Nihil parit, as the context plainly shows, [means simply non parit opera] 66. Bacon is speaking of the classification of physics and metaphysics-the one being the science of the material and efficient cause, and the other containing two parts, namely the doctrine of forms and the doctrine of final causes. To physics corresponds in practical application mechanica or mechanics to metaphysics, magia or natural magic. But magia corresponds to metaphysique because the latter contains the doctrine of Forms; that of final causes admitting from its nature of no practical application. It is this idea which Bacon has expressed by saying that the doctrine in question is, as it were, a consecrated virgin.

It is not sufficiently remarked that final causes have often been spoken of without any reference to a benevolent intention. When it is said that the final cause of a stone's falling is " locus deorsum," the remark is at least but remotely connected with the doctrine of an intelligent providence. We are to remember that Bacon has expressly censured Aristotle for having made use of final causes without referring to the fountain from which they flow, namely the providence of the Creator. And in this censure he has found many to concur.

Again, in any case in which the benevolent intention can be perceived, we are at liberty to ask by what means and according to what laws this benevolent in

66 I have supplied these words

65 De Augm. iii. 5. See note on the place.-J.S. to complete the sentence, which ends abruptly at the bottom of a page, a fresh page having apparently been substituted for that which originally followed—J. S.