works. Had he not inhabited a princely mansion in the Strand, and kept a plentiful table at Gorhambury, Ben Jonson, instead of lauding him, might have censured with Hume, and Hobbes have been as niggardly of praise as Bayle. It was the possession of the great seal that made it fashionable to read what few could understand, pushed his works into circulation during an unlettered age, and gave him Europe for an auditory.

All his thoughts were engrossed by pursuits, the glory and advantage of which were to be reaped when he was in his grave. To carry his plans to as high a state of perfection as was compatible with the shortness of human life, he denied himself the relaxation afforded by social pleasures, and came only at intervals into the arena of ordinary life. His constitution, originally delicate, was rendered still more so by study, and during sudden changes of the atmosphere, he became affected with extreme dizziness, which often caused him to swoon. This gave rise to his chaplain's astrological fiction, that he was seized with a sudden fainting fit at every eclipse of the moon. He imagined that he could add many years to his life by systematic doses of nitre, and took about three grains in weak broth every morning for thirty years. He also placed great faith in the efficacy of macerated Thubarb, to carry off the grosser humors of the body without the inconveniences of perspiration, and swallowed an occasional draught before his meals. In his youth, his appearance is said to have been singularly frank and engaging, but his features were much furrowed and darkened by the contests of political life, and the misfortunes of his later years. His severe habits of study early impressed upon him the marks of age, bent his shoulders, and gave him the stooping gait of a philosopher. His stature was of the middle size, with features rather oblong than round. His forehead was spacious and open, his eye lively and penetrating, and his whole aspect venerably pleasing; so that the beholder was insensibly drawn to love, before he knew how much reason there was to admire him. In this respect we may apply to him what Tacitus says of Agricola, " Bonum virum facile crederes, magnum libenter."

The characteristics of the Baconian philosophy are the introduction of the empiric element into every department of science, the stripping it of that crudeness which had previously rendered it repulsive, and investing it with those scientific views and methods which enable it to reveal the structure of the moral, social, and physical world, and the springs by which their several phenomena are produced; and the application of this knowledge to the increase of human enjoyment and perfectibility. Bacon's mind was strongly objective, and the first exercise of its powers appears directed to seize with tenacity on external facts, and from the appearances which they presented, without any reference to the innate faculties, to reason out the laws which controlled or produced them. He saw nature and society in a perpetual flow about him,-states falling and rising,-new languages growing in refinement,-old dropping into desuetude,fashions and manners changing with governments, and new feelings and sensibilities clinging round the advent of a new creed. The world of nature presented to his mind phenomena as striking as the world of man. The change of the seasons, the tides of the ocean, the alternation of day and night, the motion of the planets, the perpetual renovation and decay of species, and the diversified combination of different substances and qualities, were all mysteries which he was as anxious to unveil as the phenomena of society, but to none of which the ancient philosophies presented him with any direct solution. No one had previcusly attempted from a comparison of

the effects of different governments, or of different courses of training, to conclude what system of law or education was the most adapted to perfect society, and to lead man's nature to its highest development. No one before Bacon had asked himself by what process has civilization attained its present aspect, what are the elements that enter into its structure, how can the good be fostered, and the bad eliminated; or had attempted to evolve from these speculations the general principles that conspire to work the decline or the renovation of nations. The empiric element had been almost as completely abandoned in the field of nature. Aristotle appears to have been the only Greek philosopher that troubled himself about collecting facts, and making them the basis of his physical inquiries. Yet his rationalistic bias prevented him from exercising the patient scrutiny necessary to embody their real properties in language, and pursuing, without the admission of any adventitious ele ment, the trains of inference which their action involved. Some of the ancient physicists had condescended in astronomical researches to regard facts, and were rewarded for their pains with some glimpses of the Newtonian theory of the heavens; but in the general departments of physical science men rushed up to abstract principles, seeking, by a priori deduc tions, without any reference to tangible phenomena, to construct all the furniture of the universe. Bacon was the first to point out effectively the futility of these attempts to limit man's efforts in physical inquiry to the confines of nature, the first to assert the glorious principle, that knowledge must be synonymous with power. The immortal aphorism, Home naturæ minister et interpres, with which he opens the "Novum Organum," is the epitome of his views, and at one stroke disposes of all the cosmogonies and contentions of the ancients.

Bacon looked into nature with the same spirit he was disposed to investigate everything else, and which, to us who have been brought up under the light that his system has shed upon the world,it appears incredible that any man should have mistaken. What, he inquired, is the present organization of substances? how far do they invade each other's confines? by what process do they reach the successive stages of growth and decay? seeking to evolve by the rigid pursuit of such inquiries, their constituent elements, and the general laws by which they are regulated and controlled. Hence the three great centres round which his inquiries revolved in every investigation where the latent structure(latens schematismus), or the secret organization of the parts which mould and determine its appearance: and the latent process (latens processus ad formam), or the changes which occur in their parts, simultaneous with renovation and decay; and the forms or the simple constituents, involved in the production of the phenomena, and the laws which regulate their action. Bacon's idea of the powers which the result of such pursuits would confer upon man, were of the most sanguine description, and in some respects have been fully accomplished. To the application of his method to physiology we owe those sanitary measures which have put society as far out of reach of the plague, as gunpowder has placed it beyond the assault of savages. A thousand diseases, before deemed incurable, have been prevented, mitigated, or stayed; the body fortified against physical waste and consumption of strength, and human life prolonged. By examining nature in the manner he pointed out, we have made the ocean reveal the secret of its motions, the planets expound the forces which retain them in their orbits, the rainbow declare the laws of its formation, and the comets announce the periods of their return. From the facts we have obtained through, his instrumentality, we can weigh the sun and moon

as in a balance, compute their respective distances to the greatest nicety, estimate the speed with which they and all the planets revolve, and correctly ascertain the time which an atom of matter, or a ray of light falling from their surface, will reach our earth. If the inhabitants of Jupiter are similarly circumstanced to ourselves, but have had no Bacon among them, it is very possible we know more about the fluctuations of their atmosphere, and the motion of their satellites, than they know themselves. Directed by the spirit of his method, we transmit thought across seas and continents with the same speed and facility that we communicate it by speech; we sail against wind and tide, and rush through the air with the velocity of an arrow. We can soar with the bird to the skies, or explore with fish the bottom of the ocean; we can conduct the lightning innocuous to the ground, aud arrest the progress of the watery column on the wave!

The

heat and manufacture metals with Vulcan, to pour
golden fruits on the earth with Ceres, and arrest the
plague with Apollo. All those powers, the exercise
of any one of which the ancients thought sufficient to
occupy the life of a deity, Bacon sought to unite in
his single grasp, and bend to the iron mandate of his
will.* We were to have spring fruits and autumnal
blossoms, December roses and June icicles.
wines of Picardy were to be manufactured in the
cellars of London, and the aromatic odors of the south
regale the drawing-rooms of St. James. Nature was
to be startled with the production of new species of
plants and beasts, rich harvests to spring up without
seed; and the creation of beasts, birds, and fish, even
out of the earth's slime, to crown the triumphs of
man.

It is needless to say that were such results achieved, man would be a god upon earth, and nothing could be wanting to paradisal felicity but the gift of imBut splendid as have been the results of his method, mortality. Could man claim every element as his Bacon, if alive now, would only consider these as own,-sport in the deep like a nereid, and explore gleams of the dawn of that day whose bright effulg- the heavens like a bird; could he direct the lightning ence he had anticipated. To obtain a knowledge of and the shower, call up the winds, and awaken the the laws of nature which should enable men to over- storm at his pleasure; could he arrest blight and come natural obstacles, and annihilate time and disease, and command harvests and fruits to spring space, may fairly be deemed insignificant to him who out of the earth where, when, and how he pleased; sought to fathom the entire process of her changes, such a thing as social misery could not exist, and the and to make her render up all her secrets, that he only limit to human power and enjoyment would might reverse the order and the times of her produc- simply be the restrictive law designed to mark out tions; perform that frequently which she performs the boundaries of individual action, and make the rarely; accomplish with few things what she pro-liberty of the one consistent with the happiness of duces with many; crowd into one spot the produc- the many. That we shall arrive at such a golden tions of different climates and nations, and effect in a period is the opinion of many; that we are progressmoment the transmutations of seasons and ages. He ing in the direction of some of its landmarks, cannot viewed nature much in the same light as Pythagoras, be denied by any one who contrasts the state of and the exposition of the doctrine of the Samian in physical science in the present century, with its low the last book of the Metamorphoses, does not tran- condition in Bacon's time. We see no reason why he scend Bacon's belief in the flux of physical nature. who can control the thunderbolt, should not direct the cloud where to discharge its treasures; why the "Nec species sua cuique manet: Rerumque novatrix Ex aliis alias reparat natura figuras. mind which has unlocked the arcana of the heavens Nec perit in tanto quicquam (mihi credite) mundo. should not wring from the earth some of its latent Sed variat, faciemque novat: nascique vocatur Incipere esse aliud, quam quod fuit ante: morique, secrets; why he who explores the air in a frail paraDesinere illud idem: cum sint huc forsitan illa. chute, should not exchange his paper boat for wings, Hæc translata illuc, summa tamen omnia constant.' and tread with the eagle the blue vault of heaven. Ovid, Metam. lib. xv. 252-9. At least such achievments seem less visionary to us If he knew and could command the constituent than the triumphs of the present age would have been elements by which such transformations were pro- regarded by a very recent ancestry. Had a denizen duced, as his forms imported, he might fairly rival even of the eighteenth century been asked whether it the divinities of Ovid in power over external nature. was more likely that steam-carriages should be inHe could not see why, by availing himself of such vented than that man should fly, he would undoubtknowledge he should not eliminate the old nature of edly have pronounced for the wings. It seems far any body, and invest it with new: why he should more practicable to soar above seas and continents, not transmute glass into stone, bones into earth, leaves than to sail against wind and tide, or to make mere into wood, invest tin with all the properties of gold, vapor transport vast crowds through space with the and charcoal with the qualities of the diamond. To speed of a bird. Sage men may regard the transmuavert summer droughts and autumnal rains were trifles tation of metals as the dreams of idle alchemists; but with Bacon. He sought to hurl the thunderbolt with how would the philosopher of the last generation Jupiter, to command the storm with Juno, to create have scouted the man who promised to turn old rags into sugar, starch into honey, and sawdust into a substitute for flour. We are surrounded with a world of phenomena, forming the distinct sciences unknown in Bacon's day, which only await a philosopher who will investigate them in his spirit, to render up a crowd of facts which will work as great a revolution in society as the modern achievments of chemistry and mechanics. Electricity, magnetism, and galvanism are to us precisely what optics and astronomy were to Bacon; and we doubt not that, as these phenomena relate more particularly to terrestrial objects, they are big with results destined to enlarge man's power over nature, and to

e. g. "Si quis argento cupiat superinducere flavum colorem auri, aut augmentum ponderis (servatis legibus materiæ) aut lapidi alicui non diaphano diaphancitatem aut vitris tenacitatem, aut corpori alicui non vegitabili vegitationem; videndum est, quale quis preceptum aut deductionem potissimum sibi dari exoptet." He then proceeds to give the rules of this transmutation: "Primum intuetur corpus, ut turmam sive conjugationem naturarum simplicium, ut in auro, hæc convenirent; quod sit flavum; quod sit ponderosum, ad pondus tale; quod sit malleabile aut ductile, ad extensionem talem; quod non fiat volatile, nec deperdat de quanto suo per ignem; quod fluat fluore tali; quod separetur et solvatur modis talibus; et similiter de cæteris naturis quæ in auro concurrunt. Itaque hujusmodi axioma rem deducit ex formis naturarum simplicium. Nam qui formas et modos novit superinducendi flavi, ponderis, ductilis, fixi, fluoris, solutionem, et sic de reliquis et eorum gradua tiones et modos; videbit et curabit, ut ista confungi possint in aliquo corpore, unde se quater transformatio in aurum."-Nov. Org. ii. 4 and 5. ·

*For a corroboration of these views we refer the reader, once for all, to Bacon's own statement in the description of Solomon's house, at the end of the New Atlantis.

Bacon thought his method quite as applicable to the phenomena of the social world as to physical na-partition of the science, and the Novum Organum. ture, and determined to apply it to every subject which fell under his consideration. The empiric element had been totally neglected by the Greek sages, who found the world too young to give them facts in sufficient abundance to invest them with a scientific character. Bacon's penetrating mind saw at a glance the lacunes which had been left in learning through the neglect of this essential constituent of all knowl-petually present themselves for elaboration. Bacon cails edge; and deeming their existence rendered the en

and find an excuse for him in the almost superhuman ercised by the poet who creates, than by the historian obstacles which then obstructed the march of the who narrates; but the thought will not be enterphysical sciences. Society in the Sixteenth century tained for a moment, that memory is the presiding was but slowly emerging from civil barbarism: hu- faculty in the historian, and imagination in the fabuman reason, for two thousand years, had been pent up list. In proportion as men are endowed with these within the region of ethics and school-divinity; and faculties, they require the augmentation of the power, the first men who had ventured to lead it out into which weighs and balances facts, refines images, and the broad field of nature, were either imprisoned for gives to the shadows which their memory or fancy heresy or burnt for witchcraft. Ramus expiated his calls up, a graphic and life-breathing motion. If all opposition to Aristotle with his blood. Vanini and the ordinary men of our day were provided with proGiordano Bruno were burnt as atheists. Telesius digious memories, without any increase of the rationand Campanella were hunted about from city to city alistic faculty, the number of diners-out with a ready like wild beasts; Galileo was imprisoned by the In-stock of composed matter on subjects political, reliquisition at Rome, and Descartes persecuted by the gious, scientific, and legendary, might be increased, Protestant tribunals.* Every attempt to advance but history could not be benefitted by the addition the Aristotelian physics which had remained sta- of a single page worth the reading. Men would betionary since the days of the Lyceum had ended on come so many parrots; the world would certainly every side in expatriation, imprisonment, or death. retrograde, and the rationalistic element, which now It was an age of violent fluctuation and change. The tolerably manages to keep up with every man's acstruggle waged between the two philosophies was, to cumulation of facts, would be entirely overpowered a great degree, embittered by the strife between the by a deluge of useless particularities. Imagination two creeds; reason and faith alternately invaded each stands in the same relation to the poet as memory to other's province, and the voice of truth was lost in the the historian; and if all men were blessed with the clamor of their followers. The modern languages, command of ideality which Dante and Milton enoccupying a transitory position between barbarism joyed, without a proportionate influx of judgment and refinement, reflected the turbulent features of the and memory, we might have an endless flood of times, and defeated every attempt at subtile reason- legends, but not one epic. So strict is the union of ing or refined analysis in which they became the in- these three powers, even in productions of opposite strument. The stream of learning which the recent tendencies, that it may be doubted whether imaginasacking of Constantinople had suddenly turned upon tion is not as necessary to the geometrician who inEurope, perplexed and bewildered men's minds, un- vents, as to the poet who creates; and whether fixing, like a gush of light suddenly let in upon a memory may not play a more distinguished part in darkened vision, the true relations of things, and in- the productions of the philosopher than of the hisvesting shadows with the appearance of realities. torian. The human soul was stirred from its depths. Men suddenly found themselves in the midst of treasures, which, however they might admire, they were unable to appreciate; and the anomalous position awakened new trains of thought, for which their language afforded no adequate expression. If the wisest of mortals should lay the foundations of a new philosophy during such a disturbed epoch, it would be but denying him attributes above humanity to ascribe to his work the defects of his situation.

The Instauratio Magna, it must be admitted, is deficient in method. Bacon could not penetrate at once to the essential attributes of things, and divide them according to their distinguishing difference. It does not appear to have occurred to him that in the production of every creation of intellect, memory, imagination, and reason harmoniously concur, and that it is impossible to achieve the slightest triumph of genius without calling into simultaneous action the agency of these faculties, and blending their variegated resources in the elaboration of thought. Memory and reason are the woof and the warp of the intellectual tissue; and no such thing as consecutive judgment can be produced if they perform their functions apart, and refuse to interlace their resources. Of course each of the triune faculties will more or less preponderate according to the nature of the subject in which they are engaged. Imagination plays an inferior part to memory in the historian, as reason to imagination in the philosopher, but still in due subordination to the severe canons of judgment which sit as the controlling umpire in every grand operation of genius. Imagination may be more ex

* We do not agree with the cant that represents the former of these as martyrs to philosophy. They did not content themselves with reforming science, but supposing that the social and ecclesiastical institutions of the epoch stood in need of like service, began to assail princes and bishops with the same virulence as Aristotle and the schoolmen. These dignitaries, in answering their logic by another kind of weapon, were simply providing for their own safety and the general peace of their subjects.

The human mind for nearly two thousand years, had been lulled into an entire forgetfulness of objective facts, during all that period, regarding the Aristotelian physics as the highest fruits that reason could reap from scientific inquiry; and it required a man of Bacon's breadth of capacity and spirit-stirring eloquence, to throw all the energy of his nature into the opposite element, and by showing how the splendid treasures it contained might be reaped, and the errors of the Greeks retrieved, to awaken the world from its slumbers, and set it on the road of physical discovery. If his nomenclature was logically incorrect, the empirical views out of which it arose gave men's minds, perverted by speculative reasoning, a strong objective bent. If his scientific method was defective, it led men to abandon pure rationalistic inquiry, which had produced all the fruit it was capable of yielding, and to explore the fields of nature, where treasures undreamt of lay concealed. If he placed the end of philosophy in the discovery of visionary and chimerical objects, the pursuit led men to the detection of the laws of phenomena, which has already tripled man's power over nature, and enriched the intellect with the possession of a new world. Science can afford to overlook errors which balanced the one-sided tendencies of the human mind, turned the vessel aside from a barren coast, and shot it right into the harbor of discovery. The triumph to which his spirit led, rectified the mistakes with which it was accompanied, and left mankind nothing to gather from the mine of nature which he opened, but the pure ore of truth. His fervent appeals still thunder in the ear of every generation, irrespective of creed or nation while the trains of light which they leave behind them stimulate every succeeding race to renewed efforts in the path of discovery. The human mind had never been so profoundly stirred since the times of Archimedes and Aristotle, as on the day when this mighty magician spake: the wheels of science, which had stood still for two thousand years, impelled by his breath, began to move, and the

spirit of Europe was evoked on all sides to impart to of a multitude. He has established a school in metathem accelerated velocity. Pascal and Torricelli, physics, which, whatever may be its defects, keeps guided by his rules, established the properties of air, alive a due attention to facts in a science where they and Newton, in the spirit of his method, and directed are too apt to be neglected; while nearly all the by his hints, threw back the curtain of the heavens, practical improvements introduced into education. revealed the laws of light, explained the phenomena statesmanship, and social policy, may be traced of the tides, and peopled space with worlds! Nurtured in a great degree to the philosophic tone be in his school, Boyle transformed hydrostatics from a gave to the introduction of the same element. The loose assemblage of facts into a deductive science: politicians and legists, as well as philosophers, Watt constructed the steam-engine, which has anni- moulded by his counsels, have placed themselves a hilated space and economized the labor of millions; the head of their respective sciences in Europe; and the and Franklin rivalled the glories of the ancient Pro-pedantic tyrants and corrupt ministers, before whom metheus, in snatching the electric fire from heaven! Human reason, unshackled and independent, took her bent from his hands; and learned societies in every part of Europe, on the banks of the Volga, the Po, and the Danube,-either rose up at his name, or reconstructed their plans after his direction. The collective wits of the brightest of European nations, -as little inclined as the Greeks to look out of themselves for excellencies, have paid homage to him as the Solon of modern science, and founded upon his partition of the sciences an encyclopedia,* which was once the marvel and the glory of literature. The tribes of every age and nation regard the father of modern philosophy with the reverence and devotion of children; and so loud and universal has been the acclaim, that the testimony of our own epoch falls on the ear like the voice of a child closing the shout

* The great French Encyclopædia, edited by Diderot and D'Alembert, was arranged upon his scheme of the sciences.

he crouched, have been removed by the works which they patronized, and a monarchy rendered impos sible, otherwise than as the personification of the organized will and reason of the nation. The splendid fanes of science, which he only saw in vision, are rising on every side, and from their lofty cupola man may already catch glimpses of the interral splendor of the universe; and winding round their turrets, the scala intellectus extends its steps to the skies, and enables men to carry the rule and compas to the boundaries of Creation! Perfected by suc triumphs, and fitted to embrace the complete expan sion of natural, moral, and intellectual science, the human mind may expect to trace their mutual blendings and intricate ramifications, and behold the day when "Truth, though now hewn, like the mangled body of Osiris, into a thousand pieces, and seattered to the four winds of heaven, shall be gathered limb to limb, and moulded with every joint and member into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection."