PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 401 



Similar testimonies occur in many other publications of that 

 day ; in the more obscure as well as the more noted. Indeed, 

 there is no room whatever for doubt, that Bacon was generally 

 considered as the chief promoter of genuine physics, at a pe- 

 riod when the erection of the Royal Society, was of course 

 likely to bring forward the name of any individual, whose la- 

 bours had contributed, in a remarkable degree, to foster the 

 growth of physical science. Cowley, surely, will not be re- 

 jected as an evidence of the general sentiment, merely be- 

 cause he has recorded his testimony in verse. He was, as al- 

 ready mentioned, a zealous advocate for a public institution, 

 directed to the purposes of experimental philosophy ; and, on 

 the establishment of the Royal Society, he addressed to it that 

 celebrated Ode in which he represents Bacon as its Legislator. 

 Dr Henry Power calls Bacon " the Patriarch of experimental 

 " philosophy y* in a work published in 1664, in which he de- 



Vol. VIII. P. II. 3 E tails 



of Bacon The following passage is extracted from a very learned History of one 

 of the earliest of these Academies. — " Sed, quae superest dicenda, supremam, et, 

 ut nobis videtur, proximam condendae Academise enarrabimus occasionem. Scili- 

 cet postquam, ineunte circiter priori seculo, non inter Britannos solum, sed universi 

 quoque orbis incolas, immortalitati commendatissimus, Franciscus Baco de Ve- 

 rulamio, supremus regni Britannici Cancellarius, variis iisque ad sapientiae normam 

 elucubratissimis scriptis, utilissima emendandae atque instaurandae historise natu- 

 ralis dedisset consilia, et absolutissimis rationibus firmasset : non Angli modo haud 

 incassum se moneri atque excitari passi sunt, sed extern quoque genles, imprimis Galli 

 Italique, sanioris consilii patientes, tanta contentione cum qualibuscunque scientiis 

 generatim, turn praecipue rerum naturalium studio animum intenderunt, adeo, 

 ut ex illo tempore visi sint homines nihil, vel remotissimis naturae visceribus ab- 

 strusum, quod non captis ex Baconis mente experimentis curiosius rimarentur, 

 relicturi. Atque hie ardor hezc studia magnam quoque partem condiderunt Acadc~ 

 mvirum Societatumque haclenus memor alarum." Buchneri, Academ. Natures Cu- 

 piosor. Hist. cap. i. § 7w 



