LIFE OF BACON. 



3rdly. By explaining the mode in which the facts pre 

 sented to the senses ought by certain rules to be examined. 

 As the commander of an army, before he commences an 

 attack, considers the strength and number of his troops, 

 both regular and allies; the spirit by which they are 

 animated, whether they are the lion, or the sheep in the 

 lion s skin; the power of the enemy to which he is 

 opposed ; their walled towns, their stored arsenals and 

 armouries, their horses and chariots of war, elephants, 

 ordnance and artillery, and their races of men ; and then 

 in what mode he shall commence his attack and proceed 

 in the battle : so, before man directs his strength against 

 nature, and endeavours to take her high towers and dis 

 mantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the borders of 

 his dominion, (a) he ought duly to estimate, 



1st. His powers natural and artificial for the discovery 



of truth. 



2nd. His different motives for the exercise of his powers. 

 3rd. The obstacles to which he is opposed ; and, 

 4th. The mode in which he can exert his powers with 



most efficacy, or the Art of Invention. 



Of these four requisites, therefore, a perfect work upon 

 the conduct of the understanding ought, as it seems, to 

 consist: but the Novum Organum is not thus treated. 

 To system Bacon was not attached : (b) for &quot; As young 



(a) See Bacon, in the beginning of his tract on the Philosophy of Man. 

 See also Diderot de 1 Interpretation de la Nature, where he says, &quot; que 

 tous nos efforts se trouvassent reunis et diriges en meme temps centre 

 la resistance de la nature.&quot; There is the same expression in South s 

 sermon on Human Perfection, viz. &quot; thereby extending the bounds of 

 apprehension and enlarging the territories of reason.&quot; 



(6) See Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 203. See also note D, 

 vol. ii. p. 384. 



