CCC LIFE OF BACON. 



1620. The tranquil pursuits of philosophy he was now, for a 

 60 * time, obliged to quit, to allay if possible the political 



The second objection is thus stated by Mr. Coleridge, in 

 his Friend : &quot; Let any unprejudiced naturalist turn to Lord 

 Bacon s questions and proposals for the investigation of 

 single problems ; to his Discourse on the Winds ; and put 

 it to his conscience, whether any desirable end could be 

 hoped for from such a process ; or to inquire of his own ex 

 perience, or historical recollections, whether any important 

 discovery was ever made in this way. For though Bacon 

 never so far deviates from his own principles, as not to 

 admonish the reader that the particulars are to be thus 

 collected, only that by careful selection they may be con 

 centrated into universals ; yet so immense is their number, 

 and so various and almost endless the relations in which 

 each is to be separately considered, that the life of an 

 antediluvian patriarch would be expended, and his strength 

 and spirits have been wasted, in merely polling the votes, 

 and long before he could commence the process of simplifi 

 cation, or have arrived in sight of the law which was to 

 reward the toils of the over-tasked Psyche.&quot; 



This objection was also anticipated by Bacon.* &quot; To 

 arrive,&quot; he says, &quot; at an indisputable conclusion, every 

 instance should be collected, as the different creatures, 

 every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air were 



* Bacon says, &quot; Let no man shrink at the multitude of -particulars 

 required, but turn this also to an argument of hope. For the particular 

 phenomena of arts and nature are all of them like sheaves, in comparison 

 of the inventions of genius, when disjoined and metaphysically separated 

 from the evidence of things. The former road soon ends in an open plain, 

 whilst the other has no issue, but proves an infinite labyrinth ; for men 

 have hitherto made little stay in experience, but passed lightly over it; 

 and, on the other hand, spent infinite time in contemplation and the 

 inventions of genius, whereas if we had any one at our elbow who could 

 give real answers to the questions we should put about nature, the discovery 

 of causes and of all the sciences would be a work but of a few years.&quot; 



