"They who have presumed to dogmatize on nature...either from self-conceit or arrogance...have inflicted the greatest injury on philosophy and learning. For they have tended to stifle and interrupt inquiry exactly in proportion as they have prevailed in bringing others to their opinion..."
If the Advancement of Learning is an inoffensive jab at the state of science (remaining hesitant to upset the reigning monarchy of the time), his Novum Organum (The New Organon, to refine Aristotle's seminal "Organon") is the incredibly mature and bold effort and answer that refines the way we understand the universe and our means of collecting knowledge. It is a monumental work that changed how we arrive at knowing that the thing we think "is the case", is actually the case. If you have any interest in how we arrived at the scientific methods used today (chiefly, induction through the accumulation of data--natural history) and changed how we understand the world, one really must begin with Bacon's supreme book.
His work is pregnant with amazing new discoveries that are casually mentioned albeit not hashed out thoroughly, from surface tension, to the potential of the microscope to reveal new worlds, the law of conservation of energy, the creation of the barometer, inertia, the cell, the correlation (as per the Table of More or Less), that there exists some speed of light and of sound (p. 238), the suggestion of containing air for man to travel as per SCUBA and submarines and the airplane, the pressure of liquids/air for locomotion and the steam engine, among others. What probably struck me most in this book was its incredible prescience for its time. Bacon's work foreshadows more future insights into science than anyone I've ever read. From the philosophy of science he echoes Popper, that "every contradictory instance destroys a hypothesis as to the form". His discourse on heat to arrive at it's functional cause as "motion", which is not far off from future extensions on the measurement of heat and temperature, the movement of electrons in heat transfer and conduction/radiation. He arguably predates Newton in the understanding/discovery of light/color and gravity, noting "we easily deduce that color is nothing but a modification of the image of the incident and absorbed light, occasioned...by different degrees of incidence", and for gravity, by noting that "if there be any magnetic force which acts by sympathy between the globe of the earth and heavy bodies, or between that of the moon and the waters of the sea, or between the starry sphere and the planets, these must all operate at very great distances...for if the moon raise the waters, or cause substances to swell, or if the starry sphere attract the planets toward their apogees, or the sun confine the planets to within a certain distance of his mass..."
Compared to the earlier work Advancement of Learning, Novum Organum better outlines his agenda and means to investigate truth, noting how the general tendency was one of confirmation bias, as "when any proposition has been once laid down, forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation; and although most cogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, yet either does not observe or despises them, or gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, with violent and injurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice the authority of its first conclusions". We see these injuries that pure theory leaves when left unchecked by observation and experiment. The idyllic fallacies of humanity, individuals, groups, and dogmatic theories create not ignorance, but rather the facade of truth, which is much more impeding to posterity. "Feelings and will imbue and corrupt man's understanding". Clearly Bacon urges a vigilant skepticism, where knowledge and contemplation are held in suspicion, and theories and logic treated as mere fictions of the stage until they show themselves in nature. This attack reminds me similarly of the sophism of ancient Greeks, compared to Plato's Academy and the Lyceum where knowledge was given first chair over showy rhetoric (or, modern politics, anyone?).
Nowhere before this book do we see a clear goal set out for science: namely the conquering of nature by man. Though never written out explicitly, knowledge is indeed power--to be used for practice in creating the ideal world we seek. Everything preceding this book is mere groping in the dark through chance, when "the real order of experience begins by setting up a light, and then shows the road by it, commencing with a regulated and digested, not a misplaced and vague course of experiment". This "true path" has not been deserted, but rather blocked through antiquated opinion. Bacon cannot help but wonder what discoveries await us when the light is shown to guide science rightly anew, and superstitious obscenities removed. Nor is he ignorant of the despair and reluctance of change: "If, therefore, anyone believe or promise greater things, if they impute it to an uncurbed and immature mind, and imagine that such efforts begin pleasantly...we must diligently examine what gleam of hope shines upon us, and in what direction it manifests itself, so that, banishing her lighter dreams, we may discuss and weigh whatever appears of most sound importance". The spirit of discovery lies in finding through through the errors of the past and to keep going, where progress means not despair but finding new ways still unattempted (Edison's 10,000 ways that don't work :) ). Once reframed as such, Bacon's masterpiece renews and enlarges the empire of man.
His second book of Aphorisms clearly outlines his method of induction through nature, the bottom-up approach of observation to reach general conclusions, such as the Table of Instances to discover latent forms: a nature (such as heat or light) is given, which then include instances that agree with that form, or are present/existing with it (the sun, flame, naturally heated liquids, sparks, etc.). His position is to "let the experiment be tried, and then further inquiry be made". His other tables are a noble effort at this idea of furthering tables and inquiry, and while they shouldn't be condemned for their inaccuracy, should be lauded for their rethinking of the way we ask questions methodically to organize information and understand (e.g. comparative instances and the over-reliance of "spirit" as a uniform copout in many fields of explanation to which he had no understanding.
His execution of method may be flawed and completely wrong in some instances, as the editor notes. But this minor error is but a hiccup when one considers that the method itself would still be utilized to arrive at truth when others add more observations and experiment, attesting to its efficacy. So for that he can be forgiven in bringing a new light to our understanding, and a new voice to our ambitious hopes.