328 On the Fate end Character 



(low filent progrefs of the rcafoning power is hardly ever no- 

 ticed in its operations^ and feldom received in its effcfts when 

 they come forward, becaiife not underftoDd at the time. 



It would be a curious detail were vv'e to enumerate the va- 

 rious fancies and follies which have been called learning, 

 ^vhich have been ftudied and applauded as fuch in every age 

 and every country ; but it js at the fame time a humiliating 

 truth, that knowledge, which it fliould feem is congi^ial to 

 the right operation of the luiman intelleft in the invefiigation 

 of truth, has come forward to men but flowly and fparinglv, 

 and at epochas of very dillant periods, and at the intervals of 

 very diftant centuries: and what is more humiliating in the 

 hillory of man is, that, when at any time it appears, it comes 

 into the world as an enfant trouv'e, and is received as fuch, 

 rather than nurtured by thofe vvhofe relation to it fliould be 

 in practice, as it is in nature, congenial to it. True know-: 

 ledge is therefore generally either defpifed by the conceit of 

 the learning in faftiion, or more generally fufpc6led as dan- 

 gerous ; which, indeed, it always is to the falfe and artificial 

 authority which afiumes and takes the lead in the world. 



It is with pain that I have to notice fcveral eminent ex- 

 amples of tliis melancholy truth in the courfe of my flating 

 the character and fate of the monk Roger Bacon, who is the 

 fubjeft of this paper. 



\Vhcn Socrates came forward to the world, the powers of 

 the human mind, abforbed in the falfe learnino; of Greece, 

 had been employed to propagate the fophiftry anJfupport the 

 fophiftg of the time, uhofe lyftcm and bufinefs were to keep 

 mankind from true knowledge by an avowed principle of fuch 

 ignorance as was incapable of attaining truth ; tl>c purport 

 of which fyftem was to hold men in a fcrvile obedience to 

 authority, as thofe who had the command of that authority 

 {liould impofe it. Socrates in his theology taught only thofe 

 truths which had been known to the antient philofophers of 

 Greece, and which they had brought from the eaft. What 

 they affcfted tp conceal he taught openly, fo far as went to 

 eftabliih the knowledge of a moral jyjhm connc6ting the di- 

 vine and human nature. Here he ivas original: this was a 

 new truth brought forward to the world, ■ In this, as it is 

 truly faid of him, he brought down truth frofn heaven,' and 

 eftahliftied it on a moral foundation on earth. 



As to his manner of teaching, he with great addrefs, in 

 accommodation to the learning of the time, profcfi'ed to 

 commence in ignorance. But whiKt the fophilts led, in 

 fynthetic reafoning, from ignorance to a total incapacity in 

 man for truth ; he, coninicncing his theorem from ftated 

 9 ignorance. 



