IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 11 



created the physical knowledge of the 

 present day. 



Even the eloquent advocacy of the 

 Chancellor brought no unmixed good to 

 physical science. It was natural enough 

 that the man who, in his better moments, 

 took 'all knowledge for his patrimony,' 

 but, in his worse, sold that birthright for 

 the mess of pottage of Court favor and 

 professional success, for pomp and shoAv, 

 should be led to attach an undue value to 

 the practical advantages which he fore- 

 saw, as Roger Bacon and, indeed, Seneca 

 had foreseen, long before his time, must 

 follow in the train of the advancement of 

 natural knowledge. The burden of Ba- 

 con' s pleadings for science is the ' gather- 

 ing of fruit' — the importance of winning- 

 solid material advantages by the investi- 

 gation of Nature and the desirableness of 

 limiting the application of scientific meth- 

 ods of inquiry to that field. 



Bacon's younger contemporary, Hobbes, Hobbes. 



