the union of all the qualities which characterized his philosophical genius. He has in general inspired a fervour of admiration which vents itself in indiscriminate praise, and is very adverse to a calm examination of the character of his understanding, which was very peculiar, and on that account described with more than ordinary imperfection, by that unfortunately vague and weak part of language which attempts to distinguish the varieties of mental superiority. To this cause it may be ascribed, that perhaps no great man has been either more ignorantly censured, or more uninstructively commended. It is easy to describe his transcendent merit in general terms of commendation: For some of his great qualities lie on the surface of his writings. But that in which he most excelled all other men, was in the range and compass of his intellectual view-the power of contemplating many and distant objects together, without indistinctness or confusion-which he himself has called the discursive or comprehensive understanding. This wideranging Intellect was illuminated by the brightest Fancy that ever contented itself with the office of only ministering to Reason: And from this singular relation of the two grand faculties of man, it has resulted, that his philosophy, though illustrated still more than adorned by the utmost splendour of imagery, continues still subject to the undivided supremacy of intellect. In the midst of all the prodigality of an imagination which, had it been independent, would have been poetical, his opinions remained severely rational. It is not so easy to conceive, or at least to describe, other equally essential elements of his greatness, and conditions of his success. He is probably a single instance of a mind which, in philosophizing, always reaches the point of elevation whence the whole prospect is commanded, without ever rising to such a scire et conservare avemus, sed ob causam magis seriam et gravem, ea est (ut verbo dicamus) quoniam per talem, qualem descripsimus narrationem, ad virorum doctorum, in doctrinæ usu et administratione prudentiam et solertiam maximam accessionem fieri posse existimamus, et rerum intellectualium, non minus quam civilium, motus et perturbationes, vitiaque et virtutes notari posse, et regimen inde optimum educi et institui.'-De Augmentis Scientiarum, Lib. -II, c. 4. We have ventured on this long quotation, not only for the valuable additions to the English text which it contains, but for the very striking proof which a comparison of the English and Latin text will afford, of the inferiority of the version in the passages where we have the good fortune to possess the original. Yet we know that Hobbes, one of the best of our writers, was Bacon's favourite trans lator. III. Aubrey, 602. distance as to lose a distinct perception of every part of it.* It is perhaps not less singular, that his philosophy should be founded at once on disregard for the authority of men, and on reverence for the boundaries prescribed by nature to human inquiry; that he who thought so little of what man had done, hoped so highly of what he could do; that so daring an innovator in science should be so wholly exempt from the love of singularity or paradox; that the same man who renounced imaginary provinces in the empire of science, and withdrew its landmarks within the limits of experience, should also exhort posterity to push their conquests to its utmost verge, with a boldness which will be fully justified only by the discoveries of ages from which we are yet far distant. No man ever united a more poetical style to a less poetical philosophy. One great end of his discipline is to prevent mysticism and fanaticism from obstructing the pursuit of truth, With a less brilliant fancy, he would have had a mind less qualified for philosophical inquiry. His fancy gave him that power of illustrative metaphor, by which he seemed to have invented again the part of language which respects philosophy; and it rendered new truths more distinctly visible even to his own eye, in their bright clothing of imagery. Without it, he must, like others, have been driven to the fabrication of uncouth technical terms, which repel the mind, either by vulgarity or pedantry, instead of gently leading it to novelties in science, through agreeable analogies with objects already familiar. A considerable portion doubtless of the courage with which he undertook the reformation of philosophy, was caught from the general spirit of his extraordinary age, when the mind of Europe was yet agitated by the joy and pride of emancipation from long bondage. The beautiful mythology, and poetical history of the ancient world, not yet become trivial or pedantic, appeared before his eyes in all their freshness and lustre. To the general reader they were then a discovery as recent as the world disclosed by Columbus. The ancient literature, on which his imagination looked back for illustration, had then as much the charm He himself who alone was qualified, has described the genius of his philosophy both in respect to the degree and manner in which he rose from particulars to generals. Axiomata infima non mul tum ab experientiâ nudâ discrepant. Suprema vero illa et gene'ralissima (quæ habentur) notionalia sunt et abstracta et nil habent 'solidi. At media sunt axiomata illa vera, et solida et viva in qui'bus humanæ res et fortunæ sitæ sunt, et supra hæc quoque, tandem ' ipsa illa generalissima, talia scilicet quæ non abstracta sint, sed per hæc media vere limitantur. '-Nov. Org. Liber I. Aphoris. 104, of novelty as that rising philosophy through which his reason dared to look onward to some of the last periods in its unceasing and resistless course. * In order to form a just estimate of this wonderful person, it is essential to fix steadily in our minds, what he was not, what he did not do, and what he professed neither to be nor to do. He was not what is called a metaphysician. His plans for the improvement of science were not inferred by abstract reasoning from any of those primary principles to which the philosophers of Greece struggled to fasten their systems. Hence he has been treated as empirical and superficial by those who take to themselves the exclusive name of profound speculators. He was not, on the other hand, a mathematician, an astronomer, a physiologist, a chemist. He was not eminently conversant with the particular truths of any of those sciences which existed in his time. For this reason, he was underrated by men of the highest merit, who had acquired the most just reputation, by adding new facts to the stock of certain knowledge. It is not therefore very surprising to find, that Harvey, though the friend as well as physician of Bacon, though he esteemed him much for his wit and style, would not allow him to be a great philosopher; but said to Aubrey, He writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor, in derision, '-as the honest biographer thinks fit expressly to add. On the same ground, though in a manner not so agreeable to the nature of his own claims on reputation, Mr Hume has decided, that Bacon was not so great a man as Galileo, because he was not so great an astronomer. The same sort of injustice to his memory has been more often committed than avowed, by professors of the exact and the experimental. sciences, who are accustomed to regard, as the sole test of service to knowledge, a palpable addition to its store. It is very true that he made no discoveries: But his life was employed in teaching the method by which discoveries are made. This distinction was early observed by that ingenious poet and amiable man, on whom we, by our unmerited neglect, have taken too severe a revenge, for the exaggerated praises bestowed on him by our ancestors. Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last, The barren wilderness he past, * III. Aubrey, 381. The very curious literary anecdotes of Aubrey, are so much the most important part of the publication in which they have lately appeared, (Letters by eminent Persons from public Libraries at Oxford, 3 vol. London, 1813), that it ought, in all reason, to receive its title from them. An Appendix is a station of quite sufficient honour for the other materials. Did on the very border stand Of the blest promised land; And from the mountain top of his exalted wit, Cowley's Ode to the Royal Society. The writings of Bacon do not even abound with remarks so capable of being separated from the mass of previous knowledge and reflection, that they can be called new. This at least is very far from their greatest distinction: And where such remarks occur, they are presented more often as examples of his general method, than as important on their own separate account. In physics, which presented the principal field for discovery, and which owe all that they are, or can be, to his method and spirit, the experiments and observations which he either made or registered, form the least valuable part of his writings, and have furnished some cultivators of that science with an opportunity for an ungrateful triumph over his mistakes. The scattered remarks, on the other hand, of a moral nature, where absolute novelty is precluded by the nature of the subject, manifest most strongly both the superior force and the original bent of his understanding. We more properly contrast than compare the experiments in the Natural History,' with the moral and political observations which enrich the Advancement of Learning' the Speeches, the Letters, the History of Henry VII.; and, above all, ' the Essays, a book which, though it has been praised with equal fervour by Voltaire, Johnson and Burke, has never been characterized with such exact justice and such exquisite felicity of expression, as in the Discourse before us. It will serve still more distinctly to mark the natural tendency of his mind, to observe that his moral and political reflexions relate to these practical subjects, considered in their most practical point of view; and that he has seldom or never attempted to reduce to theory the infinite particulars of that civil knowledge,' which, Under the same head of Ethics, may be mentioned the small volume to which he has given the title of Essays; the best known and most popular of all his works. It is also one of those where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage; the novelty and depth of his reflexions often receiving a strong relief from the triteness of the subject. It may be read from beginning to end in a few hours; and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something unobserved before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon's writings, and is only to be accounted for by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid fa culties. Disc. 54. as he himself tells us, is, ، of all others, most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom. ' His mind, indeed, was formed and exercised in the affairs of the world. His genius was eminently civil. His understanding was peculiarly fitted for questions of legislation and of policy,though his character was not an instrument well qualified to execute the dictates of his reason. The same civil wisdom which distinguishes his judgments on human affairs, may also be traced through his reformation of philosophy. It is a practical judgment applied to science. What he effected was a reform in the maxims of state, before unsuccessfully pursued in the Republic of Letters. It is not derived from metaphysical reasoning, nor from scientific detail, but from a species of intellectual prudence, which, on the practical ground of failure and disappointment in the prevalent modes of pursuing knowledge, builds the necessity of alteration, and inculcates the advantage of administering the sciences on other principles. It is an error to represent him either as imputing fallacy to the syllogistic method, or as professing his principle of induction to be a discovery. The rules and forms of argument will always form an important part of the art of logic; and the method of induction, which is the art of discovery, was so far from being unknown to Aristotle, that it was often faithfully pursued by that great observer. What Bacon aimed at, he accomplished; which was, not to discover new principles, but to excite a new spirit, and to render observation and experiment the predominant character of philosophy. It is for this reason that Bacon could not have been the author of a system or the founder of a sect. He did not deliver opinions he taught modes of philosophizing. His early immersion in civil affairs, fitted him for this species of scientific reformation. His political course, though in itself unhappy, probably conduced to the success, and certainly influenced the character of the contemplative part of his life. Had it not been for his active habits, it is likely that the pedantry and quaintness of his age would have still more deeply tainted his significant and majestic style. The force of the illustrations which he takes from his experience of ordinary life, is often as remarkable as the beauty of those which he so happily borrows from his study of antiquity. But if we have caught the leading principle of his intellectual character, we must attribute effects still deeper and more extensive, to his familiarity with the active world. It guarded him against vain subtlety, and against all speculation that was either visionary or fruitless. It preserved him from the reigning prejudices of contemplative men, and from undue preference to particular parts of knowledge. If he had been exclusively bred in the cloister or the schools, he might |
