240 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of heat, without discovering any thing 

 ahout it ; he was grossly inappreciative 

 of the science and scientific men of his 

 day, rejecting the Copernican system, 

 and neglecting the immortal researches 

 of Harvey. It will hardly be beheved 

 that the Nation'' s critic quotes against 

 Spencer one of the most unfortunate pas- 

 sages that Bacon ever wrote : that in 

 which he condemns the chemists of his 

 day for philosophizing "from a few ex- 

 periments of the furnace ; " and dispar- 

 ages the work of the celebrated founder 

 of the science of magnetism. Dr. Gilbert. 

 Mr. Spencer can very well afford to be 

 condemned with such company. What- 

 ever weight, indeed, Bacon has as a phi- 

 losopher must go into the other side of 

 the scale. If he failed as a scienti:;t, or 

 in laying down the special rules of re- 

 search, he did great service in calling 

 men away from scholastic verbalism, 

 and inciting them to the study of Na- 

 ture ; while there can be no doubt that 

 he had great insight for comprehen- 

 sive relations, and saw with the eye of 

 prophetic genius the coming day when 

 human knowledge would be so per- 

 fected and marshaled as to represent 

 the unity and continuity of Nature. 

 "When Bacon is appealed to against 

 Spencer, we say that if he had lived in 

 our day, with the ripened sciences at 

 command, it is not unlikely that he 

 might have written "First Principles." 

 At all events, if his eminent German in- 

 terpreter, Dr. Hans Fischer, is to be 

 trusted, his mind ran very much in the 

 same direction of thought. In his work, 

 "Francis Bacon of Verulam," Dr. Fis- 

 cher says : " What in Bacon's sense is 

 the proposed Fundamental Philosophy 

 {Philosophia Prima) ? The unity of all 

 the sciences. Bacon seeks this unity 

 by the method of analogy. Not on di- 

 alectical but on real grounds should the 

 universal predicates of things (such as 

 much and little, like and different, pos- 

 sible and imi)0ssible, essential and con- 

 tingent, etc.) be determined." Again : 

 "The very design of Bacon's analogies 



shows that he sought more than can be 

 afforded by experienge. He sought by 

 this road what he could not discover 

 by that of induction alone, namely, the 

 unity of Nature as manifested in the 

 affinity of all things, or the harmony 

 of the universe." 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Annual Report of the Board of Regents 

 OF THE Smithsonian Institution, show- 

 ing the Operations, Expenditures, and 

 Condition of the Institution for the Year 

 1874. Washington : Governraent Print- 

 ing-Office, 1875. Pp. 416. 



We had occasion in the October number 

 of The Popular Science Monthly to notice 

 the last report of the Astronomer Royal of 

 England, and to remark upon tlie great 

 persistency with which " the fundamental 

 idea " of the Royal Observatory had been 

 followed out for forty years, and the great 

 success which had attended its work. 



We have a no less remarkable instance 

 of the intelligent, careful, and devoted fol- 

 lowing out of a well-considered plan and 

 of great success, in the case of our own 

 Smithsonian Institution, under the direc- 

 tion of Prof. Henry and his most efficient 

 seconders and collaborators. The Smithso- 

 nian Institution was founded by James 

 Smithson of England, " for the increase 

 and diffusion of knowledge among men." 

 In the first annual report of the secretary 

 (Prof. Henry), for 1846, a definite " plan of 

 organization " was proposed, which has 

 been adequate to all the conditions which 

 then existed and which have since arisen. 



It proposed in brief: "To increase 

 Knowledge : 1. To stimulate men of tal- 

 ent to make original researches, by offering 

 suitable rewards for memoirs containing 

 new truths ; and, 2. To appropriate an- 

 nually a portion of the income for particu- 

 lar researches, under the direction of suita- 

 ble persons. To diffuse Knowledge : 1. 

 To publish a series of periodical reports on 

 the progress of the different branches of 

 knowledge ; and, 2. To publish occasionally 

 separate treatises on subjects of general in- 

 terest." This plan has been devotedly 

 carried out, and we propose to extract from 

 Prof. Henry's report for 1874 enough to 



