Editing Baconian method (section)

===Approach to causality===
The method consists of procedures for isolating and further investigating the ''form nature'', or cause, of a [[phenomenon]], including the method of agreement, method of difference, and method of concomitant variation.<ref name="Hesse">Hesse, M. B. (1964), "Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Science", in A Critical History of Western Philosophy, ed. D. J. O'Connor, New York, pp. 141—52.</ref>

Bacon suggests that you draw up a list of all things in which the phenomenon you are trying to explain occurs, as well as a list of things in which it does not occur. Then you rank your lists according to the degree in which the phenomenon occurs in each one. Then you should be able to deduce what factors match the occurrence of the phenomenon in one list and don't occur in the other list, and also what factors change in accordance with the way the data had been ranked.

Thus, if an army is successful when commanded by Essex, and not successful when not commanded by Essex: and when it is more or less successful according to the degree of involvement of Essex as its commander, then it is scientifically reasonable to say that being commanded by Essex is causally related to the army's success.

From this Bacon suggests that the underlying cause of the phenomenon, what he calls the "form", can be approximated by interpreting the results of one's observations. This approximation Bacon calls the "First Vintage". It is not a final conclusion about the formal cause of the phenomenon but merely a hypothesis. It is only the first stage in the attempt to find the form and it must be scrutinised and compared to other hypotheses. In this manner, the truth of natural philosophy is approached "by gradual degrees", as stated in his ''Novum Organum''.