PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 395 



descriptions, appear to have early manifested a decided hosti- 

 lity to his philosophy ; and their criticisms are sometimes ex- 

 pressed in a way which plainly testifies that it had made con- 

 siderable progress. The examination of his Sylva Sylvarum, by 

 Alexander Ross, now much better known by Butler's sarcas- 

 tic allusion in the poem of Hudibras, than by any of his own 

 multifarious productions, furnishes a curious example. It was 

 published in the year 1652, that is, about twenty-five years after 

 Bacon's death. " I have," says he, " cursorily run over my 

 " Lord Bacon's New Philosophy, and find that philosophy is 

 " like wine, the older the better. For, whereas Aristotle 

 " had, with infinite pains and industry, and not without sin- 

 " gular dexterity, reduced all entities into certain heads v , and 

 " placed them in ten classes or predicaments to avoid confu- 

 " sion, and that we might, with the more facility, find out the 

 " true genus and difference of things ; which Aristotelian 

 way hath been received and approved by all Universities, 

 " and the wise men since his time in all ages, as being the 

 " most consonant to reason : yet these New Philosophers, as if 

 " they were wiser than all the world besides, have, like fantastic 

 " travellers, left the old beaten path, tojind out ways unknown, 

 " and have reduced his comely order into chaos ; jumblino* 

 " the predicaments so together, that their scholars can never 

 " find out the true genus of things." The examples which 

 he adduces in illustration of this disorder, are in fact proofs 

 of the growing taste for experimental inquiry ; and it is clear 

 from the context of the whole passage, that Bacon was consi- 

 dered by the Aristotelians as having been its chief promoter. 

 " Sometimes," he continues, " these New Philosophers tell us 

 " that heat, cold, &c. are spirits, consequently substances 

 " sometimes, again, they will have them to be qualities ; some- 

 ** times to be motions and actions. Thus, Proteus-like, they 



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