The facts on which the new philosophy was to be based, being conceivable apart from any portion of theory, and moreover not excessively numerous, they might be observed and recorded within a moderate length of time by persons of ordinary diligence.

If this registering of facts were made a royal work, it might, Bacon seems to have thought, be completed in a few years: he has at least remarked that unless this were done, the foundation of the new philosophy could not be laid in the lifetime of a single generation. The instauration, he has said in the general preface, is not to be thought of as something infinite and beyond the power of man to accomplish; nor does he believe that its mission can be fully completed (rem omnino perfici posse) within the limits of a single life. Something was therefore left for posterity to do; and probably the more Bacon meditated on the work he had in hand, the more was he convinced of its extent and difficulty. But the Distributio Operis sufficiently shows that he believed, when he wrote it, that the instauration of the sciences might speedily become an opus operatum. Of the Historia Naturalis on which it was to be based he there speaks, not less than of the Novum Organum, as of a work which he had himself accomplished, "Tertia pars operis complectitur Phænomena Universi,” —not "complecti debet." Doubtless the preface was written before the work itself was commenced; still if he had not thought it possible to make good what he here proposes to do, he would have expressly said so.1

1 The sixth part, containing the new philosophy itself, is spoken of at the end of the Distributio as at least an inchoate work, which others must finish, but to which he hopes to give "initia non contemnenda."

In a letter to Fulgenzio, written probably when Bacon was "dagli anni e da fortuna oppresso," he remarks that "these things" (the instauration of the sciences) require some ages for the ripening of them. But though he despaired of completing his design himself, and even thought that some generations must pass before it received its consummation, yet he always regarded it as a thing which sooner or later would be effectually accomplished, and which would thenceforth remain as a κTîμa ès deí. His instauration of the sciences had a definite end, in which when it was once attained it would finally acquiesce; nor is there anything in his writings to countenance the assumption which has been often made, that in his opinion the onward progress of knowledge was to continue throughout all time. On the contrary, the knowledge which man is capable of might, he thought, be attained, not certainly at once, but within the compass of no very long period. In this doubtless he erred; for knowledge must always continue to be imperfect, and therefore in its best estate progressive.

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.

(19.) 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.

When, not long before Bacon's time, philosophy freed itself from the tutelage of dogmatic theology, it became a grave question how their respective claims

to authority might be most fitly co-ordinated. It was to meet, perhaps rather to evade, this question, that the distinction between that which is true in philosophy and that which is true in religion was proposed and adopted. But it is difficult to believe that the mind of any sincere and truth-loving man was satisfied by this distinction. Bacon has emphatically

condemned it. "There is," he affirms, "no such opposition between God's word and his works." Both come from Him who is the father of lights, the fountain of all truth, the author of all good; and both are therefore to be studied with diligence and humility. To those who wish to discourage philosophy in order that ignorance of second causes may lead men to refer all things to the immediate agency of the first, Bacon puts Job's question, "An oportet mentiri pro Deo," will you offer to the God of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie?

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.1 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 systematising 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.

Nor were these attempts unsuccessful. For men

1 The latter is in effect what is now called Kosmos.