318 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



deiniis Gilbert's conclusions, he leaves it in no doubt that 

 they belong to Gilbert, and not to some Anonymous, for 

 he writes Gilbert's name beside them. Nor does he satisfy 

 himself with a mere expression of dissent, or even with a 

 single bitter outburst of condemnation; but he comes back 

 again and again, year after year, in his early works and 

 in those written near the end of his life, always answering 

 Gilbert, praising Gilbert, refuting Gilbert, condemning 

 Gilbert not Fracastorio, nor Cardan, nor Bruno, but 

 Gilbert, "our countryman." 



I shall now proceed to tell the history of the book which, 

 as I have said, forms a connecting link between Gilbert 

 and Bacon, and afterwards to examine the nature of the 

 opinions which Bacon expresses regarding Gilbert's dis- 

 coveries and hypotheses. In this way I shall endeavor to 

 reach an understanding of Bacon's views and his reasons 

 therefor, on which, perhaps, an impartial judgment of his 

 course may be founded; and this, if throwing no new light 

 on his character, may serve to heighten that with which 

 some of its many sides are already illuminated. In this 

 way also we shall see the working of one of the forces 

 which for the time, so far from advancing the new science, 

 tended rather to keep it in the slough of delusions and de- 

 ceptions from which it was struggling to emerge. 



The "New Philosophy" of Gilbert came to be published 

 half a century after his death in the following curious cir- 

 cumstances. Within the period of apparently some two 

 years after his demise, William Gilbert, of Mel ford, his 

 elder brother, bearing, oddly enough, the same name 

 ( u nec sine causa ad rationes economicas spectante," says a 

 later editor) found, among Gilbert's scattered papers, the 

 fragmentary New Philosophy and the Meteorology. These 

 (as he says, being governed by fraternal affection, as well 

 as by an appreciation of the importance of the arguments 

 advanced, whereof he felt unwilling to deprive the world), 

 he arranged, caused to be translated into Latin, and pre- 

 fixed to them a dedication to Henry, Prince of Wales, who 



