16 J. HOPKINSON ANNITERSAEY ADDRESS : 



whicli ever will be proposed, will stand tlic test of time ; for, as 

 knowledge increases, light is thrown on the relation to each other 

 of its various branches, and a single new fact may render necessary 

 an entire recasting of the whole superstructure. But, although 

 Bacon's partition of the arts and sciences has been superseded, the 

 ' Advancement of Learning ' is still a text-book in our schools, and 

 more perhaps has been done during the latter half of the present 

 century to carry out the recommendations made in it than during 

 the whole of the previous two and a half centuries. The work was 

 jGLrst published in 1605, two years after it was written. 



During the first few years of the reign of James the First, Bacon 

 makes frequent attempts to promote the union of the kingdoms of 

 England and Scotland. He believes, as he tells the King, that 

 "now the corner-stone is laid of the mightiest monarchy in 

 Europe," and he fights hard against prejudice to get it firmly 

 cemented. It seems strange to us that, in advocating the naturali- 

 sation of the Scotch, he has to argue that their immigration in 

 large numbers need not be apprehended ; that England, with a 

 population less than that of London in the present day, is not too 

 thickly populated ; and that increase of population would be a 

 source of strength rather than of weakness, for the sinews of war, 

 he says, are not made of gold but of men, and a surplus of popula- 

 tion, especially if due to the influx of sturdy northmen, will find 

 a vent in foreign aggression and colonisation, and so enlarge the 

 borders of our empire ; and he truly says that England, Scotland, 

 and Ireland firmly united will be such a trefoil as no other king in 

 Christendom can boast of or withstand. 



Nor does he, while endeavouring to promote the advancement of 

 learning and the consolidation of the empire, neglect the welfare 

 of the Church, for he tenders advice to the King advocating a 

 conciliatory policy, — pleading not for mere countenance but for 

 a "law wliich may give a liberty," and maintaining that frequent 

 ecclesiastical reforms are needed just as much as civil reforms. 

 "If," he says, "it be said to me that there is a difference between 

 civil causes and ecclesiastical, they may as well tell me that 

 churches and chapels need no reparation though houses and castles 

 do." But James would not heed Bacon's wise counsel, failing to 

 perceive that the strength of the Church lay rather in the number 

 of her devotees than in their uniformity of practice and ceremony, 

 and the printed copies of Bacon's ' Considerations touching the 

 Pacification and Edification of the Church of England ' were called 

 in. The effort, hoAvever, was not entirely withoiit fruit, for in 

 a conference with his bishops and the Puritan preachers — the 



