CCCCXXXVlll LIFE OF BACON. 



the fables in the Legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran, 

 than that this universal frame is without a mind.&quot; (a) 



As knowledge consists in understanding the sequence of 

 events, or cause and effect, (b) he knew that error must exist 

 not only from our ignorance, but from our knowledge of 

 immediate causes. 



In the infancy of his reason, man ascribes events to 

 chance, or to a wrong natural cause, (c) or to the imme- 



( /) &quot; Great God ! I d rather be 



A pagan suckled in a creed outworn : 

 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 

 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 

 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; 

 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.&quot; Wordsworth. 



(&amp;gt;) All the order and happiness in the world depend upon the regular 

 sequence of events. 



&quot; All things that are have some operation not violent or casual. Neither 

 doth any thing ever begin to exercise the same, without some fore-conceived 

 end for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for is not obtained 

 unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every ope 

 ration will not serve. That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, 

 that which doth moderate the force and power, that which appoints the 

 form and measure of working, the same we term a law. So that no certain 

 end could ever be attained, unless the actions whereby it is attained were 

 regular, that is to say, made suitable, fit, and correspondent unto their end, 

 by some canon rule of law.&quot; Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity. 



The blessings which result from the regular sequence of events will be 

 evident by a moment s consideration of the misery attendant upon an 

 interruption of this regularity : suppose, for instance, that calculating upon 

 the nutritious effects of food, it was to have the effect of poison, or that 

 sugar had the effect of arsenic ; or that fire, instead of exhilarating by a 

 genial warmth, had the violent effects of gunpowder; or that, at the moment 

 of attack, gunpowder ceased to be inflammable, is it not obvious what 

 misery must result ? 



(c) The following anecdote from a sermon of Bishop Latimer will clearly 

 illustrate this : &quot; Here now I remember an argument of Master More s, 

 which he bringeth in a book that he made against Bilney, and here by the 

 way I will tell you a merry toy. Master More was once sent in commis 

 sion into Kent, to help to try out, if it might be, what was the cause of 



