io8 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



them on the foundation of experience, and building them 

 anew, which I think none can venture to affirm to have been 

 already done or even thought of." (Nov. Org. I. 97.) And 

 his first proof of qualification as a leader was his denunciation 

 of the progress effected, and his second the display of his own 

 work as a contrast to that of other men. And it is gravely 

 declared urbi et orbi by Ellis, Spedding, Abbott, Buckley, 

 Church, and others, that " he was the first to insist upon the 

 importance of collecting facts and making experiments, and 

 that in doing so he rendered a great service to science/' 



It is, after our survey, needless to dwell upon the incom- 

 petency of Francis Bacon to stand up as a judge. He was so 

 little conversant with science, that he not only denied that 

 any advance had been made since Aristotle, but he was un- 

 aware that the objective method, or the inductive process, or 

 inductive philosophy, by whatever name we may call it, had 

 been both promulgated and practised by a host of men. For 

 a hundred and fifty years at least, to speak of the Revival 

 period only, a multitude of facts had been collected ; valuable 

 instruments had been made ; experiments without end had 

 been carried on ; countless observations had engrossed inves- 

 tigators ; sterling discoveries had been arrived at ; and yet 

 he remained in the delusion that the world had stood still. 

 He thought that he alone was moving, whereas he was alto- 

 gether behind his age. And what attitude was his, in the face 

 of great facts, when these stirred up mankind ? His attitude 

 was still one of sceptical impassiveness. He called for instru- 

 ments, and slighted the telescope. He advocated observations, 

 and disparaged those of Galileo. He ignored Tycho Brahe's 

 and Kepler's. He recommended experiments, arid disdained 

 those of Gilbert. He advised inquiries into the laws of the 

 Cosmos, and, after Copernicus and Kepler, fought against the 

 heliocentric doctrine and gloried in believing the earth was the 

 centre of the universe. Nothing could shake him out of his 

 presumption. How then was he qualified ? How was he the 

 Instaurator ? the leader of a new era ? the initiator of modern 

 progress, as we are so often told he was ? We leave the 

 answer to the judgment of the reader. 



