xiv HISTORY AND PLAN 



I am not without hope that the text of this edition will be 

 found better and more faithful than any that has hitherto 

 been produced. 



It was part of our original design to append to the Philo- 

 sophical works an accurate and readable translation of those 

 originally written in Latin ; at least of so much of them as 

 would suffice to give an English reader a complete view of 

 the Baconian philosophy. Mr. Ellis made a selection for 

 this purpose. Arrangements were made accordingly ; and 

 a translation of the Novum Organum was immediately be- 

 gun. As successive portions were completed, they were for- 

 warded in the first instance to myself; were by me carefully 

 examined ; and then passed on to Mr. Ellis, accompanied 

 with copious remarks and suggestions of my own in the 

 way of correction or improvement. Of these corrections 

 Mr. Ellis marked the greater part for adoption, improved 

 upon others, added many of his own, and then returned the 

 manuscript to be put into shape for the printer. But as he 

 was not able to look over it again after it had received the 

 last corrections, and as the translator did not wish to put 

 his own name to it, and as this edition was to contain 

 nothing for which somebody is not personally responsible, I 

 have been obliged to take charge of it myself. In my final 

 revision I have been careful to preserve all Mr. Ellis's cor- 

 rections which affect the substance and sense of the trans- 

 lation. In matters which concern only the style and manner of 

 expression, I have thought it better to follow my own taste ; 

 a mixture of different styles being commonly less agreeable 

 to the reader, and mine (as the case now stands) being 

 necessarily the predominating one. For the same reason I 

 have altered at discretion the translation of the prefaces, &c. 

 which precede the Novum Organum ; which were done by 

 another hand, and have not had the advantage of Mr. Ellis's 

 revision. For those which follow, the translator (Mr. Francis 

 Headlam, Fellow of University College, Oxford) will himself 

 be responsible. 



