THE PARASCEVE. 373 



the threshold of a new era in the science of History. It is easy to 

 see that the universal study of History must be begun afresh upon 

 a new method. Tales, traditions, and all that has hitherto been 

 accounted most authentic in our knowledge of past times, must be 

 set aside as doubtful ; and the whole story must be spelt out anew 

 from charters, names, inscriptions, monuments, and such like contem- 

 porary records. Now an eloquent man might easily make a broad 

 and spirit-stirring announcement of the paramount importance of this 

 process, as the only key by which the past can be laid open to us as 

 it really was, the grand and only chain for linking historical truths 

 and so forth. But would he thereby entitle himself to be called 

 the great reformer of History ? Surely not. Such a man might 

 perhaps get the credit, but it is Niebuhr that has done the thing : 

 for Niebuhr was the first both to see the truth and to set the 

 example. 



B. 



So, I confess, it seems to me. And if I thought that Bacon had 

 aimed at no more than that, I should not think that his time had 

 been altogether well employed, or his sense of the importance of his 

 own mission to mankind altogether justified. For surely a single 

 great discovery made by means of the inductive process would have 

 done more to persuade mankind of the paramount importance of it, 

 than the most eloquent and philosophical exposition. Therefore in 

 forsaking his experiments about gravitation, light, heat, &c., in order 

 to set forth his classification of the " Prerogatives of Instances," and 

 to lay down general principles of philosophy, he would have been 

 leaving the effectual promotion of his work to secure the exaltation 

 of his name, than which nothing could be more opposite both to his 

 principles and his practice. If his ambition had been only to have 

 his picture stand as the frontispiece of the new philosophy, he could 

 not have done better indeed than come forward as the most eloquent 

 expounder of its principles. But if he wanted (as undoubtedly he 

 did above all other things) to set it on work and bring it into 

 fashion, his business was to produce the most striking illustra- 

 tion of its powers, the most striking practical proof of what it 

 could do. 



Therefore if I thought, as Herschel seems to think, that there 

 was no essential or considerable difference between the doctrines 

 which Bacon preached and those which Galileo practised ; that 

 Galileo was as the Niebuhr of the new philosophy (according to your 

 own illustration), and Bacon only as your supposed eloquent man ; 

 I should agree with you that Bacon's right to be called the Re- 

 former of Philosophy is not made out. But when I come to look at 

 Bacon's own exposition of his views and compare them with the 

 latest and most approved account I have met with of Galileo's 



BBS 



