LIFE OF BACON. 



had beautifully stated in the conclusion of his Advance 

 ment of Learning, (a) 



Right After having thus cleared the way by considering the 



modes by which we are warped from the truth ; by which, 

 formed to adore the true God, we fall down and worship an 

 idol: (b) after having admonished us, that, in the conduct 

 of the understanding, a false step may be fatal, that a 

 cripple in the right will beat a racer in the wrong way, 

 erring in proportion to his fleetness, he expresses his asto 

 nishment that no mortal should have taken care to open 

 and prepare a way for the human understanding from 

 sense and a well conducted experience, but that all things 

 should be left either to the darkness of tradition, the 

 giddy agitation and whirlwind of argument, or else to the 

 uncertain waves of accident, or a vague and uninformed 

 experience. To open this way, to discover how our reason 

 shall be guided, that it may be right, that it be not a 

 blind guide, but direct us to the place where the star 

 appears, and point us to the very house where the babe 

 lieth, is the great object of this inquiry. 



philosophy. 5. The regeneration of sciences. 6. Supply 

 of natural history. 7. Supply of mechanical experiments. 

 8. The orderly conducting experience. 9. The not trusting 

 to inventions, except in writing. 10. Tables of invention. 

 1 1 . Proper use of tables of invention. 12. Proper conduct 

 of understanding. 13. Proper induction which is the 

 greatest hope. 14. Privation of reading, and dismembering 

 the sciences. 15. Systematic, instead of accidental inven 

 tion. 16. The not forming conjectures of new things from 

 examples of existing inventions. 17. The use of literate 

 experience. 18. Knowledge of the nature of useless inquiry 

 and idle curiosity. 19. Multitude of particulars. 20. 

 Division of labour. 21. Experimenting, 

 (o) Ante, p. cxxxvi. (6) See his essay &quot; Of Love,&quot; vol. i. p. 31. 



