data upon which science must be based. We ought, he says, to be neither like spiders, which spin
things out of their own insides, nor like ants, which merely collect, but like bees, which both
collect and arrange. This is somewhat unfair to the ants, but it illustrates Bacon's meaning.
One of the most famous parts of Bacon's philosophy is his enumeration of what he calls "idols,"
by which he means bad habits of mind that cause people to fall into error. Of these he enumerates
five kinds. "Idols of the tribe" are those that are inherent in human nature; he mentions in
particular the habit of expecting more order in natural phenomena than is actually to be found.
"Idols of the cave" are personal prejudices, characteristic of the particular investigator. "Idols of
the market-place" are those that have to do with the tyranny of words and the difficulty of
escaping from their influence over our minds. "Idols of the theatre" are those that have to do with
received systems of thought; of these, naturally Aristotle and the scholastics afforded him the
most noteworthy instances. Lastly there are "idols of the schools," which consist in thinking that
some blind rule (such as the syllogism) can take the place of judgement in investigation.
Although science was what interested Bacon, and although his general outlook was scientific, he
missed most of what was being done in science in his day. He rejected the Copernican theory,
which was excusable so far as Copernicus himself was concerned, since he did not advance any
very solid arguments. But Bacon ought to have been convinced by Kepler, whose New Astronomy
appeared in 1609. Bacon appears not to have known of the work of Vesalius, the pioneer of
modern anatomy, or of Gilbert, whose work on magnetism brilliantly illustrated inductive method.
Still more surprising, he seemed unconscious of the work of Harvey, although Harvey was his
medical attendant. It is true that Harvey did not publish his discovery of the circulation of the
blood until after Bacon's death, but one would have supposed that Bacon would have been aware
of his researches. Harvey had no very high opinion of him, saying "he writes philosophy like a
Lord Chancellor." No doubt Bacon could have done better if he had been less concerned with
worldly success.
Bacon's inductive method is faulty through insufficient emphasis on hypothesis. He hoped that
mere orderly arrangement of data would make the right hypothesis obvious, but this is seldom the
case. As a