ihct. ii.l DISSERTATION SECOND. 57 



J 



and mathematicians of all antiquity laboured incessantly to 

 reconcile their observations. 



The propensity which Bacon has here characterized so 

 well, is the same that has been, since his time, known by 

 the name of the spirit of system. The prediction, that the 

 sources of errour, would return, and were likely to infest 

 science in its most flourishing condition, has been fully ve- 

 rified with respect to this illusion, and in the case of scien- 

 ces which had no existence at the time when Bacon wrote. 

 When it was ascertained, by observation, that a considera- 

 ble part of the earth's surface consists of minerals, dispos- 

 ed in horizontal strata, it was immediately concluded, that 

 the whole exteriour crust of the earth is composed, or has 

 been composed, of such strata, continued all around without 

 interruption; and on this, as on a certain and general 

 fact, entire theories of the earth have been constructed. 



There is no greater enemy which science has to struggle 

 with than this propensity of the mind ; and it is a struggle 

 from which science is never likely io be entirely relieved ; 

 because, unfortunately, the illusion is founded on the same 

 principle from which our love of knowledge takes its rise. 



2. The idols of the den are those that spring from the 

 peculiar character of the individual. Besides the causes 

 of errour which are common to all mankind, each indivi- 

 dual, according to Bacon, has his own dark cavern or den, 

 into which the light is imperfectly admitted, and in the ob- 

 scurity of which a tutelary idol lurks, at whose shrine the 

 truth is often sacrificed. 



One great and radical distinction in the capacities of men 

 is derived from this, that some minds are best adapted to 

 mark the differences, others to catch the resemblances, of 

 things. Steady and profound understandings are dispos- 

 ed to attend carefully, to proceed slowly, and to examine 

 the most minute differences ; while those that are sublime 



