BACON AND GILBERT. 327 



of the higher import; and, in so doing, follows in the 

 steps of Gilbert himself. It must be remembered that 

 Gilbert's aim was not primarily the making of electrical 

 and magnetic discoveries, but the establishment, through 

 such means, of a great theory of the physical structure of 

 the universe ; that the actual facts proved by these experi- 

 ments and Gilbert's application of these facts to support 

 his hypotheses, were two entirely different matters. The 

 last we have already seen to be in many particulars incon- 

 clusive and obscure. Nor was the general acceptance of 

 the Copernican theory in any wise promoted by Gilbert's 

 arguments ; nor do the latter enter into any modern astro- 

 physical doctrine ; nor does any one maintain them now. 

 What other position toward them could Bacon have taken, 

 convinced, moreover, as he was of the error of the helio- 

 centric theory, than that which he assumed? A false doc- 

 trine bolstered by wrong interpretations of experiments 

 cannot be made true in the mind of any rational being so 

 believing, by establishing the accuracy of the experiments 

 per se. 



That Bacon saw in Gilbert's hypotheses a flagrant ex- 

 ample of the very errors resulting from incorrect gener- 

 alizations, away from which he was seeking to lead the 

 world, furnishes a probable reason both for the severity of 

 his censure and the persistence with which he repeated it. 

 To call Gilbert an empiric and a maker of fables, was 

 merely to indulge in a style of vituperation in which he 

 was far excelled in point of picturesqueness, vigor and 

 fecundity by Gilbert himself, and besides to follow a fash- 

 ion of the times, whereof the irascible daughter of King 

 Henry was no weak exemplar. But Bacon's strictures 

 were rarely in the form of hasty invective. They were 

 painstaking and years often elapsed before he found ex- 

 pressions for them which seemed to him entirely satis- 

 factory and adequate. Of this peculiarity, two prominent 

 instances are worth noting as typical. 



In the Advancement of Learning, published in 1605, he 



