96 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



knowledge and research by the co-operation of many was 

 more thoroughly realised in the old French Academy 

 than in the Eoyal Society of London : his desire to unite 

 all knowledge in a collective work underlies the great 

 productions of Bayle, and still more those of the Ency- 

 clopaedists. The many problems contained in Newton's 

 'Principia' were first treated singly by Clairault and 

 Maupertuis ; a general knowledge of his view of the 

 universe was introduced into popular literature by Vol- 

 taire, 1 who made use of it as a powerful weapon wherewith 

 to combat error and superstition, or, as he termed it, " pour 

 ecraser 1'infame " ; but for a full announcement of its 

 scientific value and its hidden resources we are indebted 

 to Laplace, whose 'Me'canique celeste' was the first 

 comprehensive elaboration of Newton's ideas, and whose 

 'Systeme du Monde' became the scientific gospel of a 

 whole generation of Continental thinkers. 



Bacon ami We may look upon Lord Bacon as one who inspects a 

 compared, large and newly discovered land, 2 laying plans for the 



1 I believe Voltaire was the author 1 On this Mr Ellis remarks (Bacon's 

 of the term Newtonianisme. The j Works, vol. i. p. 63) : " Bacon has 

 modesty and truly scientific spirit been likened to the prophet who, 

 of Newton would not have allowed from Mount Pisgah, surveyed the 

 him to apply such a term to his Promised Land, but left it for others 

 work, and it is doubtful whether to take possession of. Of this happy 

 Voltaire did not extract from image, perhaps part of the felicity 

 Newton's ' Philosophia Naturalis ' a was not perceived by its author, 

 general philosophy which was not For though Pisgah was a place of 

 conceived in his spirit. large prospect, yet still the Prom- 



2 Cowley in his Ode to the Royal ised Land was a land of definite 

 Society : extent and known boundaries, and, 

 "Bacon at last, a mighty man, arose, . . . moreover, it was certain that after 

 And boldly undertook the injur'd pupil's no long time the chosen people 



. .'"'Ted us forth at last, , Y ^,^ in P o ^ession of it all. 



The barren wilderness he past ; ' And tMB agrees with what Bacon 



& 



Did on the very border stand 

 Of the blest promis'd land ; 

 And, from the mountain's top of his ex- 

 alted wit, 



promised to himself and to man- 

 kind from the instauration of the 

 sciences. ... In this respect, as in 



Saw it himself, and shew'd us it." others, the hopes of Francis Bacon 



