230 Notice of British Naturalists. 



confine ourselves to that portion of the world; with an occa- 

 sional glance, but only incidental, at other countries, as our plan 

 is restricted within narrow limits. We shall at the same time, 

 give short sketches of the lives of such as have been peculiarly 

 devoted to this science, /or its own sake. In this view, science is 

 in our utilitarian age more neglected in the present, than in some 

 former periods of its history. Men are too much taken up in at- 

 tempting to promote the minor arts. The philosophical spirit is 

 too much banished ; that spirit, which Bacon has characterized 

 as the germ of life in the sciences. Hoping to be ourselves guided 

 by this spirit, we shall not however abstain from introducing ap- 

 posite proofs of the usefulness of the knowledge and study of 

 natural history. 



The state of science towards the close of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, presented a field of observation singularly calculated to at- 

 tract the curiosity and awaken the genius of Bacon. 



" One of the considerations which appears most forcibly to 

 have impressed itself upon his mind, was the vagueness and un- 

 certainty of all the physical speculations then existing, and the 

 entire want of connection between the sciences and the arts. 

 Those things are in their nature so closely united, that the same 

 truth which is a principle in science, becomes a rule in art ; yet, 

 there was at that time hardly any practical improvement which 

 had arisen from a theoretical discovery. The natural alliance 

 between the knowledge and the power of man, seemed entirely 

 interrupted ; nothing was to be seen of the mutual support which 

 they ought to afford the one to the other. The improvement of 

 art was left to the slow and precarious operation of chance, and 

 that of science, to the collision of opposite opinions."* 



To use Bacon's own words in his Advancement of Learning : 

 " As things now are, if an untruth in nature be once on foot, 

 what by reason of the neglect of examination, and countenance 

 of antiquity, and what by reason of the use of opinion in simil- 

 itudes and ornaments of speech, it is never called down." 



But there was still another circumstance which, in a peculiar 

 manner, attracted his attention — the neglect then prevalent of 

 ordinary, and the thirsty zeal for extraordinary objects. What is 

 immediately before us, and of every day occurrence, however 



* Professor Playfiiir. 



