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PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 395 
descriptions, appear to have early manifested a decided hosti- 
lity to his philosophy ; and their criticisms are sometimes ex- 
pressed in a way which plainly testifies that it had made con- 
siderable progress. The examination of his Sy/va Sylvarum, by 
ALExaNDER Ross, now much better known by Burten’s sarcas- 
tic allusion in the poem of Hudibras, than by any of his own 
multifarious productions, furnishes a curious example. It was 
published in the year 1652, that is, about twenty-five years after 
Bacon’s death. .“ I have,” says he, “ cursorily run over my 
** Lord Bacon’s New Philosophy, and find that philosophy is 
“ like wine, the older the better. For, whereas ArisroTLe 
“ had, with infinite pains and. industry, and not without. sin- 
“* cular dexterity, reduced all entities into certain heads, and 
*- placed them in ten classes or predicaments. to, avoid confu- 
“ sion, and that we might, with the more facility, find out. the 
“ true genus and difference of things; which. Aristotelian 
‘* way hath been received and approved by all, Universities, 
*“ and the wise men since his time in all ages, as being the 
* most consonant to reason: yet these New Philosophers, as if 
“* they were wiser than all the world besides, have, like fantastic 
“ travellers, left the old beaten path, to find out ways unknown, 
“and have reduced his comely order, into chaos; jumbling 
“ the predicaments so together, that their splisthcsioe can never 
“ find out the true genus of things.” The examples which 
he adduces in illustration of this disorder, are in fact proofs 
of the growing taste for experimental inquiry ; and it is clear 
from the context of the whole passage, that Bacon was consi- 
dered by the Aristotelians as having been its chief promoter. 
“‘ Sometimes,” he continues, “these New Philosophers tell us, 
“ that heat, cold, &c. are spirits, consequently substances ; 
“ sometimes, again, they will have them to be qualities ; some- 
* times to be motions and actions. Thus, Proteus-like, they 
3D ny “ turn 
