HKB
| There were some fifty men there, all | of mature years, not a young man | among them, all bearing the stamp of | dignity and probity... At his entry | they were chatting easily among | themselves but sitting in rows as if | expecting somebody. Not long after | there entered to them a man of | peaceful and serene air, save that | his face had become habituated to the | expression of pity... he took his | seat, not on a platform or pulpit, | but on level with the rest and | delivered the following address... | (III, 559; Farrington's translation). | | Bacon's portrait doubtless resembles | Galileo or Einstein more than it does | the turbulent Paracelsus or the | unquiet and skittish Cornelius | Agrippa. The titanic bearing of the | Renaissance magus is now supplanted | by a classical composure similar to | that of the "conversations" of the | earliest Humanists. Also in Galileo's | DIALOGO and in Descartes's RECHERCHE | DE LA VERITÉ we find the same | familiar tone and style of | conversation in which [Descartes | wrote] "several friends, frankly and | without ceremony, disclose the best | of their thoughts to each other." But | there is besides, in Bacon, the quiet | confidence that comes from knowing | the new powers made available to man | by technology and collaboration.The | new kind of learning, for which Bacon | is searching, must get away from | touches of genius, arbitrary | conclusions, chance, hasty summaries. | The emphasis Iaid by Bacon on the | social factor in scientific research | and in determining its ends, places | his philosophy on a radically | different plane from that of the | followers of Hermetic tradition." | | In DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM Bacon | describes Orpheus as the mythical | prototype of the philosopher ("Orpheus | sive Philosophia", VI, 646-649). | | 1B. | Bacon gives the following | definition of "interpretation: "that | reason which is elicited from facts | by a just and methodological process, | I call INTERPRETATION OF NATURE" (IV, | 51). Now, this definition means a | harsh critique of Aristotelianism, | Scholasticism and Ramism. Michel | Malherbe comments on this: | | "The main and most characteristic | feature of Bacon's epistemology is | that it rests upon a single method, | which is INDUCTION... It must help | the understanding on its way toward | truth... Thus, true knowledge will go | from a lower certainty to a higher | liberty and from a lower liberty to a | higher certainty, and so on. This | rule is the basic principle of | Bacon's theory of science; prepared | in the natural and experimental | history, determining the relationship | between the tables of presence, it | governs the induction of axioms and | the abstraction of notions and | ordains the divisions of sciences | within the general system of | knowledge.