96 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



knowledge and research by the co-operation of many was 

 more thoroughly realised in the old French Academy 

 than in the Eoyal Society of London : his desire to unite 

 all knowledge in a collective work underlies the great 

 productions of Bayle, and still more those of the Ency- 

 clopaedists. The many problems contained in Newton's 

 ' Principia ' were first treated singly by Clairault and 

 Maupertuis; a general knowledge of his view of the 

 universe was introduced into popular literature by Vol- 

 taire, 1 who made use of it as a powerful weapon wherewith 

 to combat error and superstition, or, as he termed it, " pour 

 ^eraser 1'infame " ; but for a full announcement of its 

 scientific value and its hidden resources we are indebted 

 to Laplace, whose ' Mecanique celeste ' was the first 

 comprehensive elaboration of Newton's ideas, and whose 

 ' Systeme du Monde ' became the scientific gospel of a 

 whole generation of Continental thinkers, 

 s. We may look upon Lord Bacon as one who inspects a 



Bacon and 



Newton large and newly discovered land," laying plans for the 



1 I believe Voltaire was the author On this Mr Ellis remarks (Bacon's 

 of the term Newtonianisme. The Works, vol. i. p. 63) : " Bacon has 

 modesty and truly scientific spirit teen likened to the prophet who, 

 of Newton would not have allowed from Mount Pisgah, surveyed the 

 him to apply such a term to his j Promised Land, but left it for others 

 work, and it is doubtful whether , to take possession of. Of this happy 

 Voltaire did not extract from i image, perhaps part of the felicity 

 Newton's ' Philosophia Naturalis ' a I was not perceived by its author, 

 general philosophy which was not For though Pisgah was a place of 

 conceived in his spirit. I large prospect, yet still the Prom- 



2 Cowley in his Ode to the Royal j ised Land was a land of definite 

 Society : \ extent and known boundaries, and, 



" Bacon at last, a mighty man, arose, . . . 

 And boldly undertook the injur'cl pupil's 



cause. 



led us forth at last, 

 The barren wilderness he past ; 

 Did on the very border stand 

 Of the blest promis'd land ; 



moreover, it was certain that after 

 no long time the chosen people 

 would be in possession of it all. 

 And this agrees with what Bacon 

 promised to himself and to man- 

 kind from the iustauration of the 



And, from the mountain's top of his ex- 

 alted wit, > sciences. ... In this respect, as in 

 Saw it himself, and shew'd us it." others, the hopes of Francis Bacon 



