n THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 47 



little scope for that inborn capacity which is called 

 genius. As a matter of fact, Bacon's " via " has 

 proved hopelessly impracticable ; while the 

 " anticipation of nature " by the invention of 

 hypotheses based on incomplete inductions, which 

 he specially condemns, has proved itself to be a most 

 efficient, indeed an indispensable, instrument of 

 scientific progress. Finally, that transcendental 

 alchemy the superinducement of new forms on 

 matter which Bacon declares to be the supreme 

 aim of science, has been wholly ignored by those 

 who have 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 patri- 

 mony," but, in his worse, sold that birthright for 

 the mess of pottage of Court favour and profes- 

 sional success, for pomp and show, should be led to 

 attach an undue value to the practical advantages 

 which he foresaw, 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 Bacon's pleadings for 

 science is the " gathering of fruit " the import- 

 ance of winning solid material advantages by the 

 investigation of Nature and the desirableness of 

 limiting the application of scientific methods of 

 inquiry to that field. 



