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Elective English–II

Notes instance (in this case one new car with a dull finish) and “the whole edifice tumbles.” For this
reason Bacon prescribes a different path. His method is to proceed “regularly and gradually
from one axiom to another, so that the most general are not reached till the last.” In other
words, each axiom—i.e., each step up “the ladder of intellect” – is thoroughly tested by observation
and experimentation before the next step is taken. In effect, each confirmed axiom becomes a
foothold to a higher truth, with the most general axioms representing the last stage of the
process.
Thus, in the example described, the Baconian investigator would be obliged to examine a full
inventory of new Chevrolets, Lexuses, Jeeps, etc., before reaching any conclusions about new
cars in general. And while Bacon admits that such a method can be laborious, he argues that
it eventually produces a stable edifice of knowledge instead of a rickety structure that collapses
with the appearance of a single disconfirming instance. (Indeed, according to Bacon, when one
follows his inductive procedure, a negative instance actually becomes something to be welcomed
rather than feared. For instead of threatening an entire assembly, the discovery of a false
generalization actually saves the investigator from the trouble of having to proceed further in
a particular direction or line of inquiry. Meanwhile the structure of truth that he has already
built remains intact.)
Is Bacon’s system, then, a sound and reliable procedure, a strong ladder leading from carefully
observed particulars to true and “inevitable” conclusions? Although he himself firmly believed
in the utility and overall superiority of his method, many of his commentators and critics have
had doubts. For one thing, it is not clear that the Baconian procedure, taken by itself, leads
conclusively to any general propositions, much less to scientific principles or theoretical statements
that we can accept as universally true. For at what point is the Baconian investigator willing
to make the leap from observed particulars to abstract generalizations? After a dozen instances?
A thousand? The fact is, Bacon’s method provides nothing to guide the investigator in this
determination other than sheer instinct or professional judgment, and thus the tendency is for
the investigation of particulars—the steady observation and collection of data—to go on continuously,
and in effect endlessly.
One can thus easily imagine a scenario in which the piling up of instances becomes not just
the initial stage in a process, but the very essence of the process itself; in effect, a zealous
foraging after facts (in the New Organon Bacon famously compares the ideal Baconian researcher
to a busy bee) becomes not only a means to knowledge, but an activity vigorously pursued
for its own sake. Every scientist and academic person knows how tempting it is to put off the
hard work of imaginative thinking in order to continue doing some form of rote research.
Every investigator knows how easy it is to become wrapped up in data – with the unhappy
result that one’s intended ascent up the Baconian ladder gets stuck in mundane matters of fact
and never quite gets off the ground.
It was no doubt considerations like these that prompted the English physician (and neo-
Aristotelian) William Harvey, of circulation-of-the-blood fame, to quip that Bacon wrote of
natural philosophy “like a Lord Chancellor” – indeed like a politician or legislator rather than
a practitioner. The assessment is just to the extent that Bacon in the New Organon does indeed
prescribe a new and extremely rigid procedure for the investigation of nature rather than
describe the more or less instinctive and improvisational – and by no means exclusively
empirical – method that Kepler, Galileo, Harvey himself, and other working scientists were
actually employing. In fact, other than Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer who, overseeing
a team of assistants, faithfully observed and then painstakingly recorded entire volumes of
astronomical data in tidy, systematically arranged tables, it is doubtful that there is another
major figure in the history of science who can be legitimately termed an authentic, true-
blooded Baconian. (Darwin, it is true, claimed that The Origin of Species was based on “Baconian

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