An Account Of Lord Bacons Novum Organon Scientiarum

Author : Society For The Diffusion Of Knowledge
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9780332976952
Total Pages : 50 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (769 download)

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Download or read book An Account of Lord Bacon's Novum Organon Scientiarum (Classic Reprint) written by Society For The Diffusion Of Knowledge and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-12-16 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from An Account of Lord Bacon's Novum Organon Scientiarum To accomplish this design with the more effect, it will be desirable, first, to draw their attention, in a few words, to the state in which Bacon found the world, as to knowledge and science, at the time when he flourished. For, as the returning light appears more glorious after the sun has been eclipsed - and the order and beauty of nature would look doubly striking to an eye that had seen that chaos from which she first arose, when all was without form and void, - so, if we glance, but for a moment, at that darkness which so long overshadowed the human mind, and gave birth to so many phantoms and prodigies, under the name of science, this retrospect will serve to show more clearly the merits of a philosopher, who may be regarded as the morning star of that illustrious day which has since broken out upon mankind; and in the spirit of whose method, even the immortal Newton himself explored the heavens - by the aid of a sublime geometry, as with the rod of an enchanter, dashed in pieces all the cycles, epicycles, and crystal orbs of a visionary antiquity; and established the true Copernican doctrine of astronomy on the solid basis of a most rigid and infallible demonstration. In several of the fine arts, in which chiefly the taste and imagination are concerned, such as poetry, rhetoric, statuary, and architecture, the ancients, according to general opinion, have equalled, if not surpassed, any of the moderns. Homer and Demosthenes continue, notwithstanding the flux of time, to retain their station as the masters of eloquence and song; and those exquisite statues, the Venus and the Apollo, still command our admiration as perfect models of what is chaste, and severe, and beautiful in the art of sculpture. The ancients nobly distinguished themselves also in those more rigorous exercises of the understanding which are demanded by pure mathematics; in proof of which it is sufficient to quote the name of Euclid, and of Archimedes whose discoveries in geometry and mixed science entitle him to be regarded as the Newton of all antiquity; but it was reserved for the moderns to invent a calculus - a new and more profound arithmetic, which was called for by a more exact acquaintance with nature herself, and was to be applied to that more improved state of natural science which is peculiar to later times: we allude to the doctrine of fluxions, or the differential method of Newton and Leibnitz; since cultivated, and applied to physical astronomy with great success by the French, and especially by La Place. In most of those branches of knowledge, however, which rest on the basis of experiment and observation, the ancients almost entirely failed. The case is, that to form theories, or systems of science and philosophy, from a hasty view of facts and appearances, is an easy task, since this can be done without the labour of close and patient thinking: and if antiquity be, in truth, as Bacon himself represents it, but the childhood and youth of the world, it is nothing more than we might expect that, at that period of its existence, imagination should prevail over reason; and that the calmer and more successful exercises of the latter should not unfold themselves till a maturer age. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com