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Description of Part III of the Great Instauration The Phenomena of the Universe, or Natural and Experimental History for constructing Philosophy The third part of the Great Instauration forms the foundation of Bacon’s Pyramid of Philosophy, and consists of a natural and experimental history concerning the phenomena of the universe. Bacon perceived that without such a history, made up of carefully recorded observations of various facets of life, human and natural, and including observations of divine operations in the lives of people and the rest of nature (e.g. miracles, visions, dreams, inspirations), there could be no true philosophy and knowledge of life. Bacon’s proposal is to make and collect histories in a disciplined way on as wide and varied subject matter as possible, using information gleaned from books, men of repute and the historian’s own observations, experience and experiments. He particularly urges us to study and collect information on the desires and passions of all things—of matter, nature and humanity—as therein will lie the key to understanding the summary laws of the universe, the chief of which is God’s will or desire, which is love. Once collected, the histories are to be put into suitable order and made into three ‘Tables of First Presentation’ by means of which they may be more easily worked upon by the understanding—a ‘table of essence and presence’, a ‘table of deviation’ and a ‘table of degrees’. But I design not only to indicate and mark out the ways, but also to enter them. And therefore the third part of the work embraces the Phenomena of the Universe; that is to say, experience of every kind, and such a natural history as may serve as a foundation to build philosophy upon. For a good method of demonstration or form of interpreting nature may keep the mind from going astray or stumbling, but it is not any excellence of method that can supply it with the material of knowledge. Those however who aspire not to guess and divine, but to discover and know; who propose not to devise mimic and fabulous worlds of their own, but to examine and dissect the nature of this very world itself; must go to facts for everything. Nor can the place of this labour and search and worldwide perambulation be supplied by any genius or meditation or argumentation; no, not if all men’s wits could meet in one. This therefore we must have, or the business must for ever be abandoned. But up to this day such has been the condition of men in this matter, that it is no wonder if nature will not give herself into their hands. Francis Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), ‘Plan of the Work’ Part III (transl.). It is important to understand that Bacon set to work to develop divine and human philosophy as well as a natural philosophy, for he is normally only known for the latter. But it is absolutely clear that he included all three in his scheme, and understood that a true philosophy about the summary laws could not be made without all three departments of philosophy being included and developed together. The fact that he mostly wrote about and gave examples in natural philosophy, and urged a natural history to be written, is because he veiled to some extent the other two, they being delicate matters to publicise. Bacon’s ‘Natural History’ actually signifies a history of the nature of things—divine, human and natural; and he urges us to construct a history of human emotions, thoughts and civil affairs, just as much as of cold, heat, light, vegetation, and such-like natural phenomena. Again: some will doubt rather than object; whether we speak of perfecting by our method Natural Philosophy only, or the other Sciences as well, Logic, Ethics, Politics. But we certainly understand that what we have said refers to all: and just as common logic which rules things by means of syllogism pertains not only to natural sciences, but to all, so ours too, which proceeds by induction, embraces all things. For we construct a History and Tables of Discovery as much of anger, fear, modesty, and the like; or of the examples of civil affairs; and no less of the mental emotions of memory, of composition and division, judgement and the rest; as of cold and heat, light, vegetation, or the like. Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620), Bk I, Aph 127. And not only should the characters of dispositions which are impressed by nature be received into this treatise, but those which are imposed on the mind by sex, by age, by region, by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like; and again, those which are caused by fortune, as sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity and the like… Francis Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), Bk VII, ch iii (transl.) Bacon went to great lengths to get such a history started, because without it a true philosophy could not be developed. Because he knew it was not possible for one person alone to do such a gigantic work, but that it would need the labour of many people over a long period of time, he constantly urged others to become involved. And many people did. Besides the small group of friends who helped him, through his own Baconian writings and by means of the Rosicrucian manifestos, which speak of the importance of collecting a Librum Naturae (‘Book of Nature’) or ‘a perfect method of all arts’ and of writing ‘the true and infallible Axiomata’, he inspired and organised a sufficient number of people to begin the work—a work which is now done on a large, international scale in respect of a science concerning physical laws, and taken for granted by society as if it had always been the case. Click essay button below to read an overview of the Great Instauration
© Peter Dawkins, FBRT, 1999 |
