Ixti LIFE OF BACON. 



dence in his thoughts, followed regularly in the train of 

 his duty ; not the common vulgar power, from ostentation, 

 loving trivial pomp and city noise; or from ambition, which, 

 like the sealed dove, mounts and mounts because it is 

 unable to look about it ; but power to advance science and 

 promote merit, according to his maxim and in the spirit of 

 his own words &quot; detur digniori.&quot; (s) &quot; Power to do good is 

 the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts, 

 though God accept them, yet towards men are little better 

 than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that 

 cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and 

 commanding ground.&quot; With these prospects before him 

 he could not be so weak as hastily to abandon them, by 

 yielding to that generous illusion by which the noblest 

 minds are often raised in their own esteem by imagined 

 disinterestedness. 



His pro- With respect to his professional duties he was in less 

 duties. difficulty. He knew that his conduct would be subject 

 &quot; to envy and peril,&quot; but knowing also that these aspersions 

 would originate in good feeling, in the supposition of ingra 

 titude and disregard of truth, he could not be alarmed at the 

 clamours of those who knew not what they did. To consider 

 every suggestion, in favour and in opposition to any opinion 

 is, according to his doctrine in the Novum Organum, the 

 only solid foundation upon which any judgment, even in 

 the calm inquiries of philosophy, can be formed. In public 

 assemblies, therefore, agitated by passions by which the pro 

 gress of truth is disturbed, he of all men knew and admired 

 the wise constitution of our courts, (t) in which it has been 

 deemed expedient, that, to elicit truth, the judge should 

 hear the opposite statements of the same() or of different 

 powerful disinterested minds, who may be more able than 



(s) See note 4 A at the end. (f) See note 4 B at the end. 



