INTRODUCTION. xlix 



they have become benefactors of the human 

 race, should be loved and valued highly for 

 their services ; but when we look only at 

 the instrument, and see not the hand of 

 Supreme Benevolence that employs it for our 

 benefit, we then overvalue man and under- 

 value God ; putting the former into the place 

 of the latter, and making an idol of him ; 

 and if any will not worship this idol, a 

 clamour is raised against them, and they are 

 almost persecuted. Our great philosopher 

 himself complains of this tendency to over- 

 value individuals as the cause and source 

 of great evils to science : he considers it as 

 a kind of fascination that bewitches man- 

 kind. 1 



Since the time of Bacon, philosophers and 

 inquirers into nature have for the most 

 strictly adhered to his rule, if such it may 

 be deemed ; and, with the exception of a 

 single sect, who perhaps have gone too far 



1 Rursus vero homines a progressu in scientiis detinuit, et 

 fere incantavit reverentia antiquitatis, et virorum, qui in phi- 



losophia magni habiti sunt, authoritas. Itaque mirum non 



est, si fascina ista antiquitatis, et authorum, et consensus, 

 hominum virtutem ita ligaverint, ut cum rebus ipsis con- 

 suescere (tanquam maleficiati) non potuerint. Nov. Organ. 

 1. i. aphor. 84. 



