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divided at all here, but classed together as one. In the Advancement we find nothing corresponding to the Idols of the Theatre, to which belong both the kinds of adventitious Idols mentioned in the Delineatio-those derived ex philosophorum placitis, and those derived ex perversis legibus demonstrationum; -in the Delineatio we find nothing corresponding to the Idols of the Market-place, which among those mentioned in the Advancement are alone entitled to be classed as adventitious. Thus the difference between the two appears at first to be total and radical, amounting to an entire rearrangement of all the classes. Instead of Idols of the Tribe, the Cave, and the Market-place, we find Idols of the Philosophies, the Demonstrations, and the Human Mind.

But the truth is that Bacon, being now engaged in laying out the large outlines of his subject, omits the minor distinctions which belong to the development of it in detail, and leaves the particular distribution and description of those "fallacies and false appearances" which are "inseparable from our nature and condition in life"-those namely which he had spoken of in the Advancement- to be handled in the work itself. Having however, as he came into closer contact with his subject, foreseen the opposition which he must expect from prejudices and false appearances of another kind-prejudices which had no root in the mind itself, which were not "inseparable from our nature and condition in life,”—mere immigrants and strangers that had come in and might be turned out,—namely, the belief in received systems and attachment to received methods of demonstration, — he had resolved to deal with these first; and therefore introduces them as a separate class, dividing them into two parts and assigning to each what we may call a separate chapter. These he afterwards called Idols of the Theatre, and treated them in the manner proposed; with this difference only—that he placed them last instead of first, and ran the two chapters into one.

This being allowed, it will be found that the one substantial change which the doctrine of Idols underwent was the admission of these Idola Theatri into the company, and that there is no real difference between the form of that doctrine as indicated in the Delineatio and as developed in the Novum Organum.

The only difficulty which this view of the subject presents is one which may be probably enough accounted for as an oversight of Bacon's own. I mean the classification of the Idola Fori, the source of which is no doubt extraneous, among the natives. Bacon was never very careful about subtle logical distinctions, and in this case his attention had not as yet been specially called to the point. For in the Advancement of Learning, though the great division between Native and Adventitious appears to be recognised in the margin, there is no hint of it in the text, -the particular Idols not being

arranged with any reference to those two general heads; while in Valerius Terminus the larger division is not alluded to at all, and the order in which the four Idols are there enumerated,—the first and third being of one class, the second and fourth of the other,—seems to prove that no such classification was then in his mind. Besides, it is to be remembered that the Idola Fori, however distinct in their origin, are in their nature and qualities much nearer akin to the other two than to the Idola Theatri. For though they come from without, yet when they are once in they naturalise themselves and take up their abode along with the natives, produce as much confusion, and can as hardly be expelled. Philosophical systems may be exploded, false methods of demonstration may be discarded, but intercourse of words is "inseparable from our condition in life."

At any rate, let the logical error implied be as large as it may, it is certain that Bacon did in fact always class these three together. Wherever he mentions the Idols of the Market-place with any reference to classification, they are grouped with those of the Tribe and the Cave, and distinguished from those of the Theatre. In the Temporis Partus Masculus, c. 2. (which is I think the earliest form of the Redargutio Philosophiarum though probably of later date than the Delineatio) we find "Nam Idola quisque sua (non jam scenæ dico, sed præcipue fori et specûs"), &c. In the De Augmentis Scientiarum where the four kinds of Idols are enumerated by name and in order, the line of separation is drawn not between the two first and the two last (as it would have been if Bacon had meant to balance the members of his classification on the "dichotomising principle," as suggested by Mr. Ellis, p. 91.), but between the three first and the fourth; the Idola Fori being classed along with the Idola Tribûs and Specûs, as "quæ plane obsident mentem, neque evelli possunt," the Idola Theatri being broadly distinguished from them, as "quæ abnegari possunt et deponi," and which may therefore for the present be set aside. In the Novum Organum itself, though the divisions between aphorism and aphorism tend, as I have said, to obscure the divisions of subject, yet if we look carefully we shall see that the line of demarcation is drawn exactly in the same place, and almost as distinctly. For after speaking of the three first kinds of Idol, Bacon proceeds (Aph. 61.), "At Idola Theatri innata non sunt [like those of the Tribe and Cave] nec occulto insinuata in Intellectum [like those of the Market-place], sed ex fabulis theoriarum et perversis legibus demonstrationum plane indita et recepta." Lastly, in the Distributio Operis, where the particular Idols are not mentioned by name, but the more general classification of the Delineatio is retained, it is plain that under the class Adscititia he meant to include the Idols of the Theatre only ("adscititia vero immigrârunt in mentes hominum, vel ex philosophorum placitis et sectis, vel ex perversis legibus.

demonstrationum")

and therefore he must still have meant to include the Idols of the Market-place, along with the two first, under the class Innata.

It is worthy of remark however that, in the Novum Organum itself, the distinction between Adscititia and Innata disappears. And the fact probably is that when he came to describe the several Idols one by one, he became aware both of the logical inconsistency of classing the Idola Fori among the Innata, and of the practical inconvenience of classing them among the Adscititia, and therefore resolved to drop the dichotomy altogether and range them in four co-ordinate classes. And it is the removal of this boundary line which makes it seem at first sight as if the arrangement were quite changed, whereas it is in fact only inverted. According to the plan of the Partis secunda Delineatio and also of the Distributio Operis, the confutation of the Immigrants,—that is, the Redargutio Philosophiarum and Redargutio Demonstrationum,-was to have the precedence, and the confutation of the Natives,- that is, the Redargutio Rationis humanæ nativa, was to follow. As it is, he begins with the last and ends with the first. And the reason of this change of plan is not difficult to divine. The Redargutio Philosophiarum, as he handles it, traverses a wider and more various field, and rises gradually into a strain of prophetic anticipation, after which the Redargutio Rationis would have sounded flat.

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