DR. FISCHER'S WORK ON LORD BACON AND THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. Just published, in One Volume, post 8vo. price 9s. 6d. cloth, FRANCIS BACON OF VERULAM: "It is as a system of realism that Dr. Fischer more especially contemplates the Baconian philosophy. His comments on the subject are lucid and masterly; not only as regards Bacon's own mind and times, but as regards his relation to English philosophy in general..... This valuable essay has been translated by Mr. Oxenford in a clear and forcible and (a quality not often found in translations from the German) an easy style." GUARDIAN. "We give a ready welcome to this excellent translation of a valuable work. The translator has not in this case to procure a reputation for the original. Dr. Fischer's treatise obtained an honourable reputation in England very soon after it was published. It is not only a careful and conscientious work; it has, to the English reader at least, a strong savour of originality. We are accustomed to view Bacon through the medium of his own philosophy: we look upon him as the great father of modern thought, and accept his system before we examine it. He is to most Englishmen the one philosopher, in as eminent a sense as Aristotle was so to the schoolmen. It strikes us as new, in con London: LONGMAN, BROWN, and CO., Paternoster Row. d never ad deter em into e to suc olume of ween the quite out me.' In tor must a 2, took d endea Is of the uld have original sequence ling by a emselves were not is altohas this a Moralia et 3) interjectus 172. sa. Londini, MDCCXXX. MR. OXENFORD'S TRANSLATION OF DR. FISCHER'S WORK ON LORD BACON, price 9s. 6d. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS-continued. sequence, when his philosophy is examined from without, and, as it were, put upon its trial. We look on with a curiosity not unmixed with amazement, when the sage of Verulam appears to receive his meed of praise, however liberal that meed may be, before the tribunal of Kant......It is easy to judge from these extracts how Mr. Oxenford has performed the part of a translator. His style is forcible and flowing, and close enough to the original to have now and then a Germanesque air, which has no disagreeable effect, but pleases like the refined accent of an educated foreigner." LEADER. "This is a remarkable and seasonable book, which deserves a hearty welcome from all English readers who care to think as well as read......Dr. Fischer stands alone amongst his countrymen in having fairly studied Bacon's works and fully appreciated their spirit and purpose. He patiently follows the development of Bacon's thought, interprets its special significance at every step, shows what a strict connexion there is between the parts, and what a large and vital unity it possesses as a whole. He does this, too, not like a German but like an Englishman, in a simple and natural manner, without pedantry or affectation, and in a language free from technicality of every kind. The volume sketches in outline the whole course of Bacon's thought, and is thus a valuable introduction to the study of his works. To have such a volume from Germany is certainly a good sign, one amongst many other recent ones that go to show that Bacon is now beginning to be not only read but studied, both in England and on the continent, and, what is more important still, that the deeper spirit of his writings, his heroic confidence in nature, and intense love of reality, are recognised and appreciated..... The remainder of the volume is occupied with the working out of Bacon's plan as seen in his works, and with a sketch of the relation in which he stands to the philosophers of the same school who succeeded him, and who have since developed and systematised his thought. Mr. Oxenford has translated the work with his well-known ability, so that throughout it reads like an original English work." London: LONGMAN, BROWN, and CO., Paternoster Row. PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE, LONDON. Printed by SPOTTISWOODE & Co. New-street Square. HISTORY AND PLAN OF THIS EDITION. BACON's works were all published separately, and never collected into a body by himself; and though he had determined, not long before his death, to distribute them into consecutive volumes, the order in which they were to succeed each other was confessedly irregular; a volume of moral and political writings being introduced between the first and second parts of the Instauratio Magna, quite out of place, merely because he had it ready at the time.' arranging the collected works therefore, every editor must use his own judgment. In Blackbourne, the first editor of an Opera Omnia2, took the Distributio Operis as his groundwork, and endeavoured first to place the various unfinished portions of the Instauratio Magna in the order in which they would have stood had they been completed according to the original design; and then to marshal the rest in such a sequence that they might seem to hang together, each leading by a natural transition to the next, and so connecting themselves into a kind of whole. But the several pieces were not written with a view to any such connexion, which is altogether forced and fanciful; and the arrangement has this 1 " Debuerat sequi Novum Organum: interposui tamen Scripta mea Moralia et Politica, quia magis erant in promptu. . . . Atque hic tomus (ut diximus) interjectus est et non ex ordine Instaurationis." — Ep. ad Fulgentium, Opuscula, p. 172. 2 Francisci Baconi, &c., Opera Omnia, quatuor voluminibus comprehensa. Londini, MDCCXXX. great inconvenience it mixes up earlier writings with later, discarded fragments with completed works, and pieces printed from loose manuscripts found after the author's death with those which were published or prepared for publication by himself. Birch, the original editor of the quarto edition in four volumes which (reprinted in ten volumes octavo) has since kept the market and is now known as the "trade edition," followed Blackbourne's arrangement in the main, though with several variations which are for the most part not improvements. The arrangement adopted by Mr. Montagu2 is in these respects no better, in all others much worse. M. Bouillet, in his Euvres Philosophiques de François Bacon 3, does not profess to include all even of the Philosophical works; and he too, though the best editor by far who has yet handled Bacon, has aimed at a classification of the works more systematic, as it seems to me, than the case admits, and has thus given to some of the smaller pieces a prominence which does not belong to them. In the edition of which the first volume is here offered to the public, a new arrangement has been attempted; the nature and grounds of which I must now explain. When a man publishes a book, or writes a letter, or delivers a speech, it is always with a view to some particular audience by whom he means to be understood without the help of a commentator. Giving them credit for such knowledge and capacity as they are presumably furnished with, he himself supplies what else is necessary to make his meaning clear; so that any additional illustrations would be The Works of Francis Bacon, &c., in five volumes. London, 1763. 2 The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England. A new edition by Basil Montagu, Esq. London, 1825-34. Paris, 1834. The announcement in Messrs. Longman's monthly list for December was made without my knowledge, or I should have objected to it as apparently implying that a volume would be published every month until the whole work were completed. The fact is that the first three volumes, which include the whole of the Philosophical works, are ready now and will appear at monthly intervals; the 4th and 5th containing the translations, and the 6th and 7th containing the Literary and Professional works, will I hope be ready to follow in order. But I cannot make any promise at present as to the time when the remaining portion will be ready. |