DELINEATIO ET ARGUMENTUM. 39 



oe compared with the noble oration supposed to be 

 addressed to the assembled sages of Paris in the Re- 

 dargutio PldlosopJiiarum^ the connexion will appear 

 close enough, I think, to justify us in concluding that 

 it was composed after July 1608 ; and this would ac- 

 cord very well with M. Bouillet's conjecture that this 

 was th? manuscript sent by Bacon to Tobie Matthew 

 in a letter dated October 10, 1609, and alluded to in 

 the following passage : " I send you at this time the 

 only part which hath any harshness. And yet I 

 framed to myself an opinion that whosoever allowed 

 well of that preface which you so much commend, will 

 not dislike, or at least ought not to dislike, this other 

 speech of preparation. For it is written out of the 

 same spirit and out of the same necessity. Nay it 

 doth more fully lay open that the question between me 

 and the ancients is not of the virtue of the race, but 

 of the rightness of the way. And to speak truth, it 

 is to the other but as palma to pugnus part of the 

 same thing, more large." 



Of the matter of the oration it is not necessary to 

 say anything, since it is all to be found either in the 

 prefaces to the Novum Organum, or in the aphorisms 

 of the first book. The form is peculiar to this com- 

 position, which exhibits as perfect a specimen as we 

 have of Bacon's power as an artist and an orator. 



I have taken the text from the manuscript (which 

 has been revised and corrected throughout by Bacon 

 himself, and some sentences added between the lines 

 or in the margin), except in the part which has been 

 printed by Gruter, and which appears to have been 

 taken from a corrected copy. For as I find that all 

 the alterations made by Bacon in the manuscript, with 



