114 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



important task was executed by Francis Bacon, Lord 

 Verulam, who will, therefore, justly be looked upon 

 in all future ages as the great reformer of philo- 

 sophy, though his own actual contributions to the 

 stock of physical truths were small, and his ideas 

 of particular points strongly tinctured with mistakes 

 and errors, which were the fault rather of the 

 general want of physical information of the age 

 than of any narrowness of view on his own part ; 

 and of this he was fully aware. It has been at- 

 tempted by some to lessen the merit of this great 

 achievement, by showing that the inductive method 

 had been practised in many instances, both ancient 

 and modern, by the mere instinct of mankind ; but 

 it is not the introduction of inductive reasoning, as 

 a new and hitherto untried process, which charac- 

 terizes the Baconian philosophy, but his keen per- 

 ception, and his broad and spirit-stirring, almost 

 enthusiastic, announcement of its paramount im- 

 portance, as the alpha and omega of science, as the 

 grand and only chain for the linking together of 

 physical truths, and the eventual key to every dis- 

 covery and every application. Those who would 

 deny him his just glory on such grounds would 

 refuse to Jenner or to Howard their civic crowns, 

 because a few farmers in a remote province had, 

 time out of mind, been acquainted with vaccin- 

 ation, or philanthropists, in all ages, had occasion- 

 ally visited the prisoner in his dungeon. 



(106.) An immense impulse was now given to sci- 

 ence, and it seemed as if the genius of mankind, long 

 pent up, had at length rushed eagerly upon Nature, 



