CHAPTER V

THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES—FRANCIS BACON

The preceding chapter has shown that there is a continuity in the development of single sciences. The astronomy, or the chemistry, or the mathematics, of one period depends so directly on the respective science of the foregoing period, that one feels justified in using the term "growth," or "evolution," to describe their progress. Now a vital relationship can be observed not only among different stages of the same science, but also among the different sciences. Physics, astronomy, and chemistry have much in common; geometry, trigonometry, arithmetic, and algebra are called "branches" of mathematics; zoölogy and botany are biological sciences, as having to do with living species. In the century following the death of Copernicus, two great scientists, Bacon and Descartes, compared all knowledge to a tree, of which the separate sciences are branches. They thought of all knowledge as a living organism with an interconnection or continuity of parts, and a capability of growth.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century the sciences were so considerable that in the interest of further progress a comprehensive view of the tree of knowledge, a survey of the field of learning, was needed. The task of making this survey was undertaken by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam (1561-1626). His classification of human knowledge was celebrated, and very influential in the progress of science. He kept one clear purpose in view, namely, the control of nature by man. He wished to take stock of what had already been accomplished, to supply deficiencies, and to enlarge the bounds of human empire. He was acutely conscious that this was an enterprise too great for any one man, and he used his utmost endeavors to induce James I to become the patron of the plan. His project admits of very simple statement now; he wished to edit an encyclopedia, but feared that it might prove impossible without coöperation and without state support. He felt capable of furnishing the plans for the building, but thought it a hardship that he was compelled to serve both as architect and laborer. The worthiness of these plans was attested in the middle of the eighteenth century, when the great French Encyclopaedia was projected by Diderot and D'Alembert. The former, its chief editor and contributor, wrote in the Prospectus: "If we come out successful from this vast undertaking, we shall owe it mainly to Chancellor Bacon, who sketched the plan of a universal dictionary of sciences and arts at a time when there were not, so to speak, either arts or sciences. This extraordinary genius, when it was impossible to write a history of what men knew, wrote one of what they had to learn."

Bacon, as we shall amply see, was a firm believer in the study of the arts and occupations, and at the same time retained his devotion to principles and abstract thought. He knew that philosophy could aid the arts that supply daily needs; also that the arts and occupations enriched the field of philosophy, and that the basis of our generalizations must be the universe of things knowable. "For," he writes, "if men judge that learning should be referred to use and action, they judge well; but it is easy in this to fall into the error pointed out in the ancient fable; in which the other parts of the body found fault with the stomach, because it neither performed the office of motion as the limbs do, nor of sense, as the head does; but yet notwithstanding it is the stomach which digests and distributes the aliment to all the rest. So that if any man think that philosophy and universality are idle and unprofitable studies, he does not consider that all arts and professions are from thence supplied with sap and strength." For Bacon, as for Descartes, natural philosophy was the trunk of the tree of knowledge.

On the other hand, he looked to the arts, crafts, and occupations as a source of scientific principles. In his survey of learning he found some records of agriculture and likewise of many mechanical arts. Some think them a kind of dishonor. "But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of History Mechanical is, of all others, the most radical and fundamental towards natural philosophy." When the different arts are known, the senses will furnish sufficient concrete material for the information of the understanding. The record of the arts is of most use because it exhibits things in motion, and leads more directly to practice. "Upon this history, therefore, mechanical and illiberal as it may seem (all fineness and daintiness set aside), the greatest diligence must be bestowed." "Again, among the particular arts those are to be preferred which exhibit, alter, and prepare natural bodies and materials of things as agriculture, cooking, chemistry, dyeing; the manufacture of glass, enamel, sugar, gunpowder, artificial fires, paper and the like." Weaving, carpentry, architecture, manufacture of mills, clocks, etc. follow. The purpose is not solely to bring the arts to perfection, but all mechanical experiments should be as streams flowing from all sides into the sea of philosophy.

Shortly after James I came to the throne in 1603, Bacon published his Advancement of Learning. He continued in other writings, however, to develop the organization of knowledge, and in 1623 summed up his plan in the De Augmentis Scientiarum.

A recent writer (Pearson, 1900) has attempted to summarize Bacon's classification of the different branches of learning. When one compares this summary with an outline of the classification of knowledge made by the French monk, Hugo of St. Victor, who stands midway between Isidore of Seville (570-636) and Bacon, some points of resemblance are of course obvious. Moreover, Hugo, like Bacon, insisted on the importance of not being narrowly utilitarian. Men, he says, are often accustomed to value knowledge not on its own account but for what it yields. Thus it is with the arts of husbandry, weaving, painting, and the like, where skill is considered absolutely vain, unless it results in some useful product. If, however, we judged after this fashion of God's wisdom, then, no doubt, the creation would be preferred to the Creator. But wisdom is life, and the love of wisdom is the joy of life (felicitas vitæ).

Nevertheless, when we compare these classifications diligently, we find very marked differences between Bacon's views and the medieval. The weakest part of Hugo's classification is that which deals with natural philosophy. Physica, he says, undertakes the investigation of the causes of things in their effects, and of effects in their causes. It deals with the explanation of earthquakes, tides, the virtues of plants, the fierce instincts of wild animals, every species of stone, shrub, and reptile. When we turn to his special work, however, on this branch of knowledge, Concerning Beasts and Other Things, we find no attempt to subdivide the field of physica, but a series of details in botany, geology, zoölogy, and human anatomy, mostly arranged in dictionary form.

When we refer to Bacon's classification we find that Physics corresponds to Hugo's Physica. It studies natural phenomena in relation to their material causes. For this study, Natural History, according to Bacon, supplies the facts. Let us glance, then, at his work on natural history, and see how far he had advanced from the medieval toward the modern conception of the sciences.

For purposes of scientific study he divided the phenomena of the universe into (1) Celestial phenomena; (2) Atmosphere; (3) Globe; (4) Substance of earth, air, fire, water; (5) Genera, species, etc. Great scope is given to the natural history of man. The arts are classified as nature modified by man. History means, of course, descriptive science.