measure superseded, chiefly through the influence exerted by those works themselves; for, the more satisfactory and effectual is the refutation of some prevailing errors, and the establishment of some philosophical principles that had been overlooked, the less need is there to resort, for popular use, to the arguments by which this has been effected. They are like the trenches and batteries by which a besieged town has been assailed, and which are abandoned as soon as the capture has been effected.

'I have been labouring,' says some writer who had been engaged in a task of this kind (and Bacon might have said the same)-'I have been labouring to render myself useless.' Great part, accordingly, of what were the most important of Bacon's works are now resorted to chiefly as a matter of curious and interesting speculation to the studious few, while the effect of them is practically felt by many who never read, or perhaps even heard of them.

But his Essays retain their popularity, as relating chiefly to the concerns of every-day life, and which, as he himself expresses 'come home to men's business and bosoms.'

it,

In the Pure and in the Physical Sciences,' says an able writer in the Edinburgh Review, each generation inherits the conquests made by its predecessors. No mathematician has to redemonstrate the problems of Euclid; no physiologist has to sustain a controversy as to the circulation of the blood; no astronomer is met by a denial of the principle of gravitation. But in the Moral Sciences the ground seems never to be incontestably won; and this is peculiarly the case with respect to the sciences which are subsidiary to the arts of administration and legislation. Opinions prevail and are acted

on.

The evils which appear to result from their practical application lead to inquiry. Their erroneousness is proved by philosophers, is acknowledged by the educated Public, and at

1 See Edinburgh Review, July, 1843, No. 157.

length is admitted even by statesmen. The policy founded on the refuted error is relaxed, and the evils which it inflicted, so far as they are capable of remedy, are removed or mitigated. After a time new theorists arise, who are seduced or impelled by some moral or intellectual defect or error to reassert the exploded doctrine. They have become entangled by some logical fallacy, or deceived by some inaccurate or incomplete assumption of facts, or think that they see the means of acquiring reputation, or of promoting their interests, or of gratifying their political or their private resentments, by attacking the altered policy. All popular errors are plausible; indeed, if they were not so they would not be popular. The plausibility to which the revived doctrine owed its original currency, makes it acceptable to those to whom the subject is new; and even among those to whom it is familiar, probably ninety-nine out of every hundred are accustomed to take their opinions on such matters on trust. They hear with surprise that what they supposed to be settled is questioned, and often avoid the trouble of inquiring by endeavouring to believe that the truth is not to be ascertained. And thus the cause has again to be pleaded before judges, some of whom are prejudiced, and others will not readily attend to reasoning founded on premises which they think unsusceptible of proof.

To treat fully of the design and character of Bacon's greater works, and of the mistakes-which are not few or unimportant -that prevail respecting them, would be altogether unsuited to this Work. But it may be worth while to introduce two brief remarks on that subject.

(1.) The prevailing fault among philosophers in Bacon's time and long before, was hasty, careless, and scanty observation, and the want of copious and patient experiment. On supposed facts not carefully ascertained, and often on mere baseless conjecture, they proceeded to reason, often very closely and ingeniously; forgetting that no architectural skill in a superstructure

will give it greater firmness than the foundation on which it rests; and thus they of course failed of arriving at true conclusions; for, the most accurate reasoning is of no avail, if you have not well-established facts and principles to start from.

Bacon laboured zealously and powerfully to recall philosophers from the study of fanciful systems, based on crude conjectures, or on imperfect knowledge, to the careful and judicious investigation, or, as he called it, 'interrogations' and 'interpretation of nature;' the collecting and properly arranging of well-ascertained facts. And the maxims which he laid down and enforced for the conduct of philosophical inquiry, are universally admitted to have at least greatly contributed to the vast progress which physical science has been making since his time.

But though Bacon dwelt on the importance of setting out from an accurate knowledge of facts, and on the absurdity of attempting to substitute the reasoning-process for an investigation of nature, it would be a great mistake to imagine that he meant to disparage the reasoning-process, or to substitute for skill and correctness in that, a mere accumulated knowledge of a multitude of facts. And any one would be far indeed from being a follower of Bacon, who should despise logical accuracy, and trust to what is often called experience, meaning by that, an extensive but crude and undigested observation. For, as books, though indispensably necessary for a student, are of no use to one who has not learned to read, though he distinctly sees black marks on white paper, so is all experience and acquaintance with facts unprofitable, to one whose mind has not been trained to read rightly the volume of nature, and of human transactions, spread before him.

When complaints are made-often not altogether without reason-of the prevailing ignorance of facts, on such or such subjects, it will often be found that the parties censured, though possessing less knowledge than is desirable, yet possess more than they know what to do with. Their deficiency in arranging

and applying their knowledge, in combining facts, and correctly deducing, and rightly employing, general principles, will be perhaps greater than their ignorance of facts. Now, to attempt remedying this defect by imparting to them additional knowledge,―to confer the advantage of wider experience on those who have not skill in profiting by experience,-is to attempt enlarging the prospect of a short-sighted man by bringing him to the top of a hill. Since he could not, on the plain, see distinctly the objects before him, the wider horizon from the hill-top is utterly lost on him.

In the tale of Sandford and Merton, where the two boys are described as amusing themselves with building a hovel, they lay poles horizontally on the top, and cover them with straw, so as to make a flat roof; of course the rain comes through; and Master Merton proposes then to lay on more straw. But Sandford, the more intelligent boy, remarks, that as long as the roof is flat, the rain must sooner or later soak through; and that the remedy is, to alter the building, and form the roof sloping. Now, the idea of enlightening incorrect reasoners by additional knowledge, is an error analogous to that of the flat roof: of course knowledge is necessary; so is straw to thatch the roof; but no quantity of materials will be a substitute for understanding how to build.

But the unwise and incautious are always prone to rush from an error on one side into an opposite error. And a reaction accordingly took place from the abuse of reasoning, to the undue neglect of it, and from the fault of not sufficiently observing facts, to that of trusting to a mere accumulation of ill-arranged knowledge. It is as if men had formerly spent vain labour in threshing over and over again the same straw, and winnowing the same chaff, and then their successors had resolved to discard those processes altogether, and to bring home and use wheat and weeds, straw, chaff, and grain, just as they grew, and without any preparation at all.

If Bacon had lived in the present day, I am convinced he

would have made his chief complaint against unmethodized inquiry, and careless and illogical reasoning; certainly he would not have complained of Dialectics as corrupting philosophy. To guard now against the evils prevalent in his time, would be to fortify a town against battering-rams instead of against

cannon.

(2.) The other remark I would make on Bacon's greater works is, that he does not rank high as a 'natural philosopher.' His genius lay another way; not in the direct pursuit of physical science, but in discerning and correcting the errors of philosophers, and laying down the principles on which they ought to proceed. According to Horace's illustration, his office was not that of the razor, but the hone, acutum reddere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi.'

The poet Cowley accordingly has beautifully compared Bacon to Moses,

Who did upon the very border stand

Of that fair promised land;'

who had brought the Israelites out of Egypt, and led them through the wilderness to the entrance into the land flowing with milk and honey, which he was allowed to view from the hill-top, but not himself to enter.

It requires the master-mind of a great general to form the plan of a campaign, and to direct aright the movements of great bodies of troops: but the greatest general may perhaps fall far short of many a private soldier in the use of the musket or the sword.

But Bacon, though far from being without a taste for the pursuits of physical science, had an actual inaptitude for it, as might be shewn by many examples. The discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo, for instance, which had attracted attention before and in his own time, he appears to have rejected or disregarded.

But one of the most remarkable specimens of his inaptitude for practically carrying out his own principles in matters con