PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 379 



placed beyond the reach of scientific discovery. It is not very 

 surprising, therefore, that Bacon should believe, that a series 

 of skilfully conducted experiments might ultimately lead to 

 the detection of the nature or essence of gold ; and that 

 having thus discovered its constituent nature, it would then 

 be possible to superinduce it upon any other substance. There 

 is nothing in all this that any way impeaches his respect 

 to the " laws and limits of the human understanding." He 

 recommended no inquiry upon any other principles than 

 those of Induction ; and he proposed no object to philoso- 

 phy, which any thing but experience could shew to be unat- 

 tainable. 



But we are farther told, that there is " scarcely a page in 

 " the Novum Organum" which does not afford proofs of Ba- 

 con's ignorance of the laws and limits of the understanding ; 

 and that his miscellaneous philosophical pieces seem to have 

 been written in express contempt of them *. Had this writer 

 contented himself with stating, that there are many things in 

 Bacon's miscellaneous pieces, which show that he was not ex- 

 empt from credulity, — that his understanding, resplendent as 

 it was, bore some stains of the scurf and scum of an ignorant 

 age ; or had he only stated that Bacon's metaphysical notions 

 are sometimes vague and unsound, and his use of language 

 fanciful and uncertain his observations might have been allow- 

 ed to pass unnoticed, as neither new nor objectionable. But 

 when he goes so far as to charge the Novum Organum as every 

 where manifesting a total ignorance of the fundamental condi- 

 tions of philosophical reasoning, the only respectful conclusion, 

 I must say, that can be adopted in regard to such an asser- 



3 B 2 tion 



v— • ■ ■ — ' 



* Quarterly Review^ No. xxxiii. p. 50. 



