PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OV LOltD BACON. 399 



" with us in England*." Sprat always speaks of Lord 

 Bacon, as the founder of that experimental school, which 

 came to be embodied in the institution whose history he 

 wrote f ; and the testimony of Mr Oldenburg, its first Secre- 

 tary, though a foreigner, is equally explicit. " The enrich- 

 ** ment of the storehouse of Natural Philosophy, was a work," 

 says he, " begun by the single care and conduct of the ex- 

 " cellent Lord Verulam, and is now prosecuted by the joint 

 " undertakings of the Royal Society J." Glanvill, whose 

 zeal in defending this establishment, against the attacks of its 

 enemies, well entitles him to respectful notice in the history of 

 philosophy, makes frequent acknowledgements to the same 

 purpose. The following passage contained in the work which 

 he wrote in its defence, and which was published in 1668, under 

 the title of Plus ultra, or, the Advancement of Knowledge since the 

 days of Aristotle, is too remarkable to be omitted on the pre- 

 sent occasion. " The philosophy that must signify either for light 

 " or use, must not be the work of the mind turned in upon itself, 

 " and only conversing with its own ideas ; but must be rai- 

 " sed from the observations and applications of sense, and 



" take 



* See his Account of his own Life, in a Letter published in the Appendix to- 

 Hearne^s Preface to Langtoft's Chronicle, Number IX. 



T See particularly p. 35. History of the Royal Society. 



\ Philosophical Transactions, No. 22. p. 391. Mr Oldeneurg frequently 



alludes to Bacon as the chief forwarder of experimental philosophy. " When 

 our renowned Lord Bacon had demonstrated the methods for a perfect restora- 

 tion of all parts of real knowledge, the success became on a sudden stupendous, 

 and effective philosophy began to sparkle, and even to flow into beams of bright 

 shining light all over the world." — Pref. to Philosophical Transactions for 1672- 

 — " Many of the chief Unversities in Christendom have formed themselves into 

 philosophical societies, and have largely contributed their aids to advance Lord 

 Bacon's design for the instauration of arts and sciences. 11 — Pref. to Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1677. 



