CCXCV111 LIFE OF BACON. 



and power ; or of Agrippina, l occidat matrem modo im- 

 peret/ that preferred empire with any condition never so 

 detestable ; or of Ulysses, qui vetulam prsetulit immor- 

 talitati/ being a figure of those which prefer custom and 

 habit before all excellency ; or of a number of the like 

 popular judgments. For these things must continue as 

 they have been : but so will that also continue, whereupon 

 learning hath ever relied, and which faileth not : justificata 

 est sapientia a filiis suis. &quot; (a) 



(a) To this doctrine of Bacon s there have been various 

 objections, which seem to be reducible to two: 1st. That 

 the truth of which Bacon is in search does not exist. 

 2ndly. That if it do exist, Bacon s is not the mode to 

 discover it. 



The first objection is thus stated by Brown, in his work 

 on Cause and Effect : &quot; To those .who have a clear notion 

 of the relation of cause and effect, it may be almost 

 superfluous to repeat, that there are no t forms, in the 

 wide sense which Lord Bacon gives to that word, as one 

 common operative principle of all changes that are exactly 

 similar. The powers, properties, qualities of a substance, 

 do not depend on any thing in a substance. They are 

 truly the substance itself, considered in relation to certain 

 other substances, and nothing more.&quot; 



This objection seems to have been anticipated by Bacon,* 



* Bacon s words are : &quot; An opinion hath prevailed, and is grown 

 inveterate, that the essential forms and true differences of things can by no 

 diligence of man be found out. Which opinion, in the main, gives and 

 grants us thus much : that the invention of forms is of all other parts of 

 knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible they may be found. 

 And as for possibility of invention, there are some faint-hearted discoverers, 

 who, when they see nothing but air and water, think there is no further 

 land. But it is manifest that Plato, a man of an elevated wit, and who 

 beheld all things as from a high cliff, in his doctrine of ideas did descry 

 that forms were the true objects of knowledge ; however he lost the real 



