INTRODUCTION. ix 



stretching, as it was intended to do, across the whole domain 

 of knowledge, Bacon was fain to confess, lay beyond his skill 

 and power ; and he left it to posterity to be filled up. It is as 

 though his &quot; Instauratio Magna&quot; gradually enlarged its bor 

 ders, and from beginning as a book ended as knowledge itself. 

 It is, indeed, doubtful whether he believed that this part would 

 ever take the form of a book at all. 



Thus then it appears how small a portion of the great 

 scheme is filled up : and of that small portion filled up, what 

 a little piece is that which the Novum Organon covers ! 



But in the history of the world s growth it holds a promi 

 nent place. He who was &quot; ad literas potius quam ad aliud 

 quicquam natus, et ad res gerendas nescio quo fato contra 

 genium suum abreptus,&quot; (De Augm. Scient. VIII. 3.) has by 

 posterity been restored again to his proper sphere. The sad 

 history of his political career is indeed now attacked and now 

 defended ; but it has ceased to occupy the minds of men. 

 Francis Bacon lives as a Philosopher, not as a courtier, in the 

 imperishable memorials of his genius. And yet he was not the 

 first man who advocated or who practised an experimental 

 method ; nor are his thoughts always original, or always just. 

 His glory is that he seized the truths which were beginning to 

 emerge from the darkness of the days that were past ; that 

 he adorned them with a genius and a poetry which remind 

 us of the beauties of Plato ; that he boldly attacked systems 

 supported by the strength of logical precision, and backed by 

 the authority of centuries and the opinion of millions ; that he 

 was peculiarly gifted to see the connections of different sciences 

 one with another ; that he recognised the relationship in which 

 the human mind stands towards the outer world ; that he had 

 almost a prophetic foresight ; and, finally, that he, loved Na 

 ture, as &quot; the handmaid of Religion,&quot; and had a consistent 

 and unchanging aim before him the appeal to facts as they 

 are in the world rather than to theories or speculations, and 

 the belief that Nature will not mislead those who e;o to her 



