sict. ii.] DISSERTATION SECOND. 51 



those who went before us." l The human race has now 

 more experience than in Ihe generations that are past, and 

 of course may be expected to have made higher attainments 

 in science and philosophj r . Compared with natural phi- 

 losophy, as it now exists, the ancient physicks are rude and 

 imperfect. The speculations contained in them are vague 

 and unsatisfactory, and of little value, but as they eluci- 

 date the history of the errours and illusions to which the 

 human mind is subject. Science was not merely stationa- 

 ry, but often retrograde ; the earliest opinions were fre- 

 quently the best ; and the reasonings of Democritus and 

 Anaxagoras were in many instances more solid than those 

 of Plato and Aristotle. Extreme credulity disgraced the 

 speculations of men who, however ingenious, were little ac- 

 quainted with the laws of nature, and unprovided with the 

 great criterion by which the evidence of testimony can alone 

 be examined. Though observations were sometimes made, 

 experiments were never instituted ; and philosophers, who 

 were little attentive to the facts which spontaneously offer- 

 ed, did not seek to increase their number by artificial com- 

 binations. Experience, in those ages, was a light which 

 darted a few tremulous and uncertain rays on some small 

 portions of the field of science, but men had not acquired 

 the power over that light which now enables them to con- 

 centrate its beams, and to fix them steadily on whatever ob- 

 ject they wish to examine. This power is what distin- 

 guishes the modern physicks, and is the cause why later 

 philosophers, without being more ingenious than their pre- 

 decessors, have been infinitely more successful in the study 

 of nature. 



1 Bacon. 



