PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 879 
placed beyond. the reach of scientific discovery. It is not very 
surprising, therefore, that Bacon should believe, that a series 
of skilfully conducted experiments might ultimately lead to 
the detection of the nature or essence of gold; and that 
having thus discovered its constituent nature, it would then 
be possible to superinduce it upon any other substance. There 
is nothing in all this that any way impeaches his respect 
to the “ laws and limits of the human understanding.” He 
recommended no inquiry upon any other principles than 
those of Induction; and he proposed no object to philoso- 
phy, which any thing but experience could shew to be unat- 
tainable. 
But we are farther told, that there is “ scarcely a page in 
* the Novum Organum” which does not afford proofs of Ba- 
con’s ignorance of the laws and limits of the understanding ; 
and that his miscellaneous philosophical pieces seem to have 
been written in express contempt of them *. Had this writer | 
contented himself with stating, that there are many things in 
Bacon’s miscellaneous pieces, which show that he was not ex- 
empt from credulity, that his understanding, resplendent as 
it was, bore some stains of the scurf and seum of an ignorant 
age; or had he only stated that Bacon’s metaphysical notions 
‘are sometimes vague and unsound, and his use of language 
fanciful and uncertain. his observations might have been: allow- 
ed to pass unnoticed, as neither new nor objectionable. But 
when he goes so far as to charge the Novum Organum as every 
where manifesting a total ignorance of the fundamental condi- 
tions of philosophical reasoning, the only respectful conclusion, 
I must say, that can be adopted in regard to such an asser- 
3B2 . tion 
* Quarterly Review, No. =xxiii. p. 50. 
