CXXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 



third visitation or circuit in all the qualities thereof: as 

 the excellency and vivacity of the wits of this age; the 

 noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of 

 ancient writers ; the art of printing, which communicateth 

 books to men of all fortunes ; the openness of the world 

 by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of experi 

 ments, and a mass of natural history ; the leisure where 

 with these times abound, not employing men so generally 

 in civil business as the states of Greecia did, in respect of 

 their popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the 

 greatness of their monarchy ; the present disposition of 

 these times at this instant to peace ; the consumption of 

 all that ever can be said in controversies of religion, which 

 have so much diverted men from other sciences ; and the 

 inseparable property of time, which is ever more and more 

 to disclose truth, I cannot but be raised to this persuasion, 

 that this third period of time will far surpass that of the 

 Grecian and Roman learning ; only if men will know their 

 own strength, and their own weakness both ; and take, 

 one from the other, light of invention, and not fire of con 

 tradiction ; and esteem of the inquisition of truth, as of an 

 enterprize, and not as of a quality or ornament; and employ 

 wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, 

 and not to things vulgar and of popular estimation.&quot; 



Of this work he presented copies to the King and to 



different statesmen, and, to secure its perpetuity, he exerted 



himself with his friends to procure a translation of it into 



Latin, which, in the decline of his life, he accomplished, (a) 



1606. As a philosopher, Bacon, who beheld all things from a 



46i cliff, thus viewed the intellectual globe, dilating his sight 



to survey the whole of science, and contracting it so that 



the minutest object could not escape him. 



(a) For the different editions and further particulars of this work, see 

 note A A A at the end. 



