376 ON THE SCOPE AND INFLUENCE OF THE 



quiry ; and both consider his writings as fixing a new and 

 important era in the history of Modern Science. The obser- 

 vations made by the former upon these points, have been exa- 

 mined at considerable length in an able article of the Journal 

 referred to ; and the following passage contains the sum of 

 what is there advanced in regard to the general scope and cha- 

 racter of Bacon's Philosophy. " The topic on which Mr 

 " Stewart chiefly dwells, while panegyrizing the Philosophy 

 " of Bacon, is the respect which it pays to the limits, the laws, 

 " and resources of the human understanding ; and this is sure- 

 ly the most extraordinary topic of any which he has select- 

 ed. There is scarcely a page in the Novum Organum, that 

 " does not furnish a contradiction to it. — So little, indeed, 

 can Bacon be considered as having risen in any great de- 

 gree above the age in which he lived, with respect to his 

 views as to the proper aim of philosophy, or the proper 

 limits of the human understanding, that he even goes 

 so far as to give us formal receipts for the making of 

 gold, and performing other prodigies, which he tells us he 

 judges very possible. With the exception of the disciples of 

 " Raymond Lully and Jordano Bruno, the extravagant spe- 

 " culations in which Bacon wished to embark philosophy, had 

 " been long abandoned by sober inquirers *." 



It 



* Quarterly Review, No. xxxiii. p. 50. — The writer of this article seems to have 

 been anxious to find some great names to countenance what he has advanced in 

 regard to the very inferior merits of Bacon's philosophical writings. What his 

 success has been in this endeavour, the following extract will shew. 



" I remember, said Sir Joshua Reynolds, that Mr Burke, speaking of Ba- 

 son's Essays, said, he thought them the best of his works. Dr Johnson was 

 of opinion, that their excellence and their value consisted in their being obser- 

 vations of a strong mind operating upon life ; and in consequence you find 



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