FORE:The value of experimentation as such had, however, scarcely dawned on Bacon. His famous Prerogative In379stances are, in the main, a guide to simple observation, supplemented rather than replaced by direct interference with the phenomena under examination, comparable to that moderate use of the rack which he would have countenanced in criminal procedure. There was, perhaps, a deeper meaning in Harveys remark that Bacon wrote about Nature like a Lord Chancellor than the great physiologist himself suspected. To Bacon the statesman, science was something to be largely endowed out of the public treasury in the sure hope that it would far more than repay the expenditure incurred, by inventions of priceless advantage to human life. To Bacon the lawyer, Nature was a person in possession of important secrets to be wrested from her by employing every artifice of the spy, the detective, the cross-examiner, and the inquisitorial judge; to Bacon the courtier, she was a sovereign whose policy might be discovered, and, if need be, controlled, by paying judicious attention to her humours and caprices. And, for this very reason, he would feel drawn by a secret affinity to the Aristotelian dialectic, derived as it was through Socrates and Plato from the practice of the Athenian law-courts and the debates of the Athenian assembly. No doubt the Topics was intended primarily for a manual of debate rather than of scientific enquiry; and the English Chancellor showed true philosophic genius in his attempt to utilise it for the latter purpose. Nevertheless the adaptation proved a mistake. It was not without good grounds that the Socratic dialectic had been reserved exclusively by its great founder, and almost exclusively by his successors, for those human interests from the discussion of which it was first derived. And the discoverers, who in Bacons own lifetime were laying the foundations of physical science, employed a method totally different from his, because they started with a totally different conception of the universe. To them it was not a living whole, a Form of Forms, but a sum of forces to be analysed, isolated, and recombined, in fact or in idea, with a sublime disregard380 for the conditions under which they were presented to ordinary experience. That very extension of human power anticipated by Bacon came in a manner of which he had never dreamed. It was gained by studying, not the Forms to which he attached so much importance, but the modes of motion which he had relegated to a subordinate place in his classification of natural causes.543George had much difficulty in restraining his indignation, but he kept it down, and only bowed the duke silently out of his presence. No sooner had he departed than he flew to Cumberland, and declared he would bear this no longer. Again overtures were made to Pitt, again Pitt expressed himself willing to take office, but again declined, because Temple still refused. Foiled in these attempts to engage Pitt, and equally foiled in an endeavour to engage some of the heads of the leading Whig houses, who would enter no administration without Pitt, a heterogeneous cabinet was at length cobbled up, through the management of the old Duke of Newcastle, who was hankering after office. The Marquis of Rockingham was put forward as First Lord of the Treasury and Premier. Grafton and Conway were to be Secretaries of State; and the latter, lately dismissed with ignominy from the army, was to lead the Commons. The Earl of Northington was made Chancellor, the old Duke of Newcastle Privy Seal; another old and almost superannuated nobleman, Lord Winchelsea, President of the Council. Charles Townshend retained his post of Paymaster of the Forces. Such materials, it was clear, could never long hold together. "It is a mere lute-string administration," said Townshend himself; "it is pretty summer wear, but it will never stand the winter!"
Vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus
FORE:They had devised a hastily planned code of signals, very much like those used by a flying school instructor giving orders to a pupil where the Gossport helmet was not worn.
FORE:
FORE:It was to have an unexpected outcome.
