the fault rather of the general want of physical information of the age than of any narrowness of view on his own part; and of this he was fully aware. It has been attempted by some to lessen the merit of this great achievement by showing that the inductive method had been practised in many instances, both ancient and modern, by the mere instinct of mankind; but it is not the introduction of inductive reasoning, as a new and hitherto untried process, which characterizes the Baconian philosophy, but his keen perception, and his broad and spirit-stirring, almost enthusiastic, announcement of its paramount importance as the alpha and omega of science, as the grand and only chain for the linking together of physical truths, and the eventual key to every discovery and every application. Those who would deny him his just glory on such grounds would refuse to Jenner or to Howard their civic crowns because a few farmers in a remote province had, time out of mind, been acquainted with vaccination, or philanthropists in all ages had occasionally visited the prisoner in his dungeon.

An immense impulse was now given to science, and it seemed as if the genius of mankind, long pent up, had at length rushed eagerly upon Nature, and commenced with one accord the great work of turning up her hitherto unbroken soil, and exposing the treasures so long concealed. A general sense now prevailed of the poverty and insufficiency of existing knowledge in matters of fact; and as information flowed fast in, an era of excitement and wonder commenced, to which the annals of mankind had furnished nothing similar. It seemed, too, as if Nature herself seconded the impulse; and, while she supplied new and extraordinary aids to those senses which were henceforth to be exercised in her investigation while the telescope and the microscope laid open the infinite in both directions as if to call attention to her wonders,

and signalize the epoch, she displayed the rarest, the most splendid and mysterious, of all astronomical phenomena, the appearance and subsequent total extinction of a new and brilliant fixed star, twice within the lifetime of Galileo himself.

The immediate followers of Bacon and Galileo ransacked all nature for new and surprising facts, with something of that craving for the marvelous which might be regarded as a remnant of the age of alchemy and natural magic, but which, under proper regulation, is a most powerful and useful stimulus to experimental inquiry. Boyle, in particular, seemed animated by an enthusiasm of ardor which hurried him from subject to subject, and from experiment to experiment, without a moment's intermission, and with a sort of undistinguishing appetite; while Hooke (the contemporary, and almost the worthy rival, of Newton) carried a keener eye of scrutinizing reason into a range of research even yet more extensive. As facts multiplied, leading phenomena became more prominent, laws began to emerge, and generalizations to commence; and so rapid was the career of discovery, so signal the triumph of the inductive philosophy, that a single generation, and the efforts of a single mind, sufficed for the establishment of the system of the universe on a basis never after to be shaken.

(ELLIS, General Preface to the Philosophical Works (Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Ellis, Spedding, and Heath, 1. 63–65, 67).)

Bacon has been likened to the prophet who from Mount Pisgah surveyed the Promised Land, but left it for others to take possession of. Of this happy image perhaps part of the felicity was not perceived by its author. For though Pisgah was a place of large prospect, yet still the Promised Land was a land of definite extent and known boundaries, and moreover it was certain that after no

long time the chosen people would be in possession of it all. And this agrees with what Bacon promised to himself and to mankind from the instauration of the sciences.

A truer image of the progress of knowledge may be derived from the symbol which, though on other grounds, Bacon himself adopted. Those who strive to increase our knowledge of the outward universe may be said to put out upon an apparently boundless sea; they dedicate themselves

To unpathed waters undreamed shores;

and though they have a good hope of success, yet they know they can subdue but a small part of the new world which lies before them.

In this respect, then, as in others, the hopes of Francis Bacon were not destined to be fulfilled. It is neither to the technical part of his method nor to the details of his view of the nature and progress of science that his great fame is justly owing. His merits are of another kind. They belong to the spirit rather than to the positive precepts of his philosophy.

He did good service when he declared, with all the weight of his authority and of his eloquence, that the true end of knowledge is the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate. The spirit of this declaration runs throughout his writings, and we trust has worked for good upon the generations by which they have been. studied. And as he showed his wisdom in coupling together things divine and human, so has he shown it also in tracing the demarcation between them, and in rebuking those who by confounding religion and philosophy were in danger of making the one heretical, and the other superstitious....

The religious earnestness of Bacon's writings becomes more remarkable when we contrast it with the tone of the

most illustrious of his contemporaries.

Galileo's works

are full of insincere deference to authority, and of an affected disbelief in his own discoveries. Surely he who loves truth earnestly will be slow to believe that the cause of truth is to be served by irony. But we must not forget the difference between the circumstances in which the two men were placed.

Next to his determination of the true end of natural philosophy, and of the relation in which it stands to natural and to revealed theology, we may place among Bacon's merits his clear view of the essential unity of science. He often insists on the importance of this idea, and has especially commended Plato and Parmenides for affirming that all things do by scale ascend to unity.' The Creator is holy in the multitude of his works, holy in their disposition, holy in their unity; it is the prerogative of the doctrine of Forms to approach as nearly as possible towards the unity of Nature, and the subordinate science of Physics ought to contain two divisions relating to the same subject. One of these ought to treat of the first principles which govern all phenomena, and the other of the fabric of the universe. All classifications of the sciences ought to be as veins or markings, and not as sections or divisions; nor can any object of scientific inquiry be satisfactorily studied apart from the analogies which connect it with other similar objects.

But the greatest of all the services which Bacon rendered to natural philosophy was that he perpetually enforced the necessity of laying aside all preconceived opinions and learning to be a follower of Nature. These counsels could not to their full extent be followed, nor has he himself attempted to do so. But they contain a great share of truth, and of truth never more needful than in Bacon's age. Before his time doubtless the authority of Aristotle, or rather that of the scholastic interpretation

of his philosophy, was shaken, if not overthrown. Nevertheless the systematizing spirit of the schoolmen still survived, and of the reformers of philosophy not a few attempted to substitute a dogmatic system of their own for that from which they dissented. . . .

...

Lastly, the tone in which Bacon spoke of the future destiny of mankind fitted him to be a leader of the age in which he lived. It was an age of change and of hope. Men went forth to seek in new-found worlds for the land of gold and for the fountain of youth; they were told that yet greater wonders lay within their reach. They had burst the bands of old authority; they were told to go forth from the cave where they had dwelt so long, and look on the light of heaven. It was also for the most part an age of faith; and the new philosophy upset no creed, and pulled down no altar. It did not put the notion of human perfectibility in the place of religion, nor deprive mankind of hopes beyond the grave. On the contrary, it told its followers that the instauration of the sciences was the free gift of the God in whom their fathers had trusted - that it was only another proof of of Him whose mercy is over all his works.

the mercy

(FOWLER, Bacon, pp. 195–196, 201, 202.)

In the Introduction to my Edition of the Novum Organum (§ 14), I have adduced a large number of testi"monies to the estimation in which Bacon's works on the reform of science and scientific method were held from the time of his contemporaries and immediate successors down to the middle of the eighteenth century, when the 'Baconian Philosophy' and the 'Baconian Method' had come to be almost universally regarded as terms expressive of accurate and fruitful investigation in every department of science. These testimonies include those of Descartes, Mersenne, Gassendi, Peiresc, Du Hamel, Bayle, Voltaire,