CIV LIFE OF BACON. 



or weakened, which are religion, justice, counsel, and 

 treasure, men had need to pray for fair weather.&quot; (a) 



The state of Bacon s mind at this period may be easily 

 conceived. The love of order (b) and the love of improve 

 ment, apparently not really opposed to each other, were his 

 ruling passions : and his mode of improvement was the same 

 in all science, (c) natural or human, (d) by experiment, 

 and only by experiment ; by proceeding with the greatest 

 caution, and by remembering that, after the most careful 

 research, we may be in the greatest error: &quot;for who will 

 take upon him, when the particulars which a man knows and 

 which he hath mentioned, appear only on one side, there 

 may not lurk some particular which is altogether repugnant: 

 as if Samuel should have rested in those sons of Jesse which 

 were brought before him in the house, and should not have 

 sought David, who was absent in the field. &quot; (e) He never 

 presumed to act until he had tried all things : never used 

 one of Briareus s hundred hands, until he had opened all 

 Argus s hundred eyes.(/) He acted through life upon his 

 father s favourite maxim, &quot; stay a little that we may make 

 an end the sooner. 



This was his general mode of proceeding, which, when 

 the experiment was attended with difficulty, generated more 

 caution ; and he well knew that, of all experiments, state 

 alterations are the most difficult, the most fraught with 

 danger. 



Zealous as he was for all improvement ; believing, as he 

 did, in the omnipotence of knowledge, that &quot; the spirit of 

 man is as the lamp of God, wherewith he searcheth the 

 inwardness of all secrets ;&quot;(g) and, branding the idolaters of 



(a) Essay on Sedition, vol. i. p 44. 

 (6) Vol. ii. p. 63. Adv. of Learning. 



(c) See postea, under Novum Organum. 



(d) This is Bacon s division. (/) Essay of Delays, vol. i. p. 73. 



(e) Adv. of Learn, vol. ii. p. 180. (g) Adv. of Learning, vol. ii. p. 1 1 . 





