Except as reflected in himself, man has no reason
for assuming unity in the universe, or an ultimate substance, or
a prime-motor. The a priori insistence on this unity ended by
fatiguing the more active -- or reactive -- minds; and Lord Bacon
tried to stop it. He urged society to lay aside the idea of
evolving the universe from a thought, and to try evolving thought
from the universe. The mind should observe and register forces --
take them apart and put them together -- without assuming unity
at all. "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." "The
imagination must be given not wings but weights." As Galileo
reversed the action of earth and sun, Bacon reversed the relation
of thought to force. The mind was thenceforth to follow the
movement of matter, and unity must be left to shift for itself.
The revolution in attitude seemed voluntary, but in fact was as
mechanical as the fall of a feather. Man created nothing. After
1500, the speed of progress so rapidly surpassed man's gait as to
alarm every one, as though it were the acceleration of a falling
body which the dynamic theory takes it to be. Lord Bacon was as
much astonished by it as the Church was, and with reason.
Suddenly society felt itself dragged into situations altogether
new and anarchic -- situations which it could not affect, but
which painfully affected it.
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