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PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 389: 
ment of some branches of physics was already in part begun ; 
but there was no general agreement as to the rules of inquiry.: 
The truths which Bacon taught are now, it is true, known, 
and their authority acknowledged by all; but this was far 
from. being the case in the early part of the seventeenth 
century. One of the most intelligent of his friends, Sir Tuo- 
mas Boprey, to whose judgment he submitted an early sketclr 
ef his plan, appears to have been. wholly unable to. distin- 
guish between the loose procedure of the: Empirics and that 
regulated procedure which it recommends. ‘ As for that,” 
says he, “‘ which you inculcate of a knowledge more excellent 
“ than. now is among us, which experience might produce; 
“if we would but essay to extract it. out of Nature by particu- 
‘« lar probations; it cannot, in reason, be: otherwise thought, 
“« but that there are infinite numbers which embrace. the course 
“that you propose, with all the diligence and care that ability can 
“ perform. I stand well assured,’ he concludes, “ that tor the 
“ tenor and subject of your main. discourse, you. will not be 
“able to impannel. a. substantial: jury in any university,. that 
“ will give up a verdict to acquit you: of error*.” But that 
which places the importance of Bacon’s logical instructions in 
the strongest light, is the fact, that one of the most celebrated 
of his contemporaries, who also professed himself a reformer of. 
philosophy, employed the better part of his life, in teaching 
doctrines as diametrically. opposite in principle as in tendency. 
‘This. was Descarrss. ‘“ Never,” says an eloquent philosopher, 
“did two men, gifted with such genius, recommend paths of in- 
“ quiry so widely. different.. Descartes aspired to deduce an ex- 
“. planation of the whole system of things by reasoning a priori 
“ upon 
* Sir Tuomas Boptey’s Letter to Sir Francis Bacon aut his coGiTaTA ET: 
visa.—Bacon’s Works, vol. iii. p. 242, 243, 244, 
