u 



u 



424 ON THE SCOPE AND INFLUENCE OF THE 



affirms, that his works contain the germs of many important 

 discoveries in physics, the gloryattached to which, though wholly 

 reaped by others, was partly due to him *. His services to 

 physics, are much more correctly indicated, by another well 

 known German writer of that period, namely, Baron Puffen- 

 dorf. " It was the late Chancellor Bacon," says he, " who raised 

 the standard, and urged on the march of discovery ; so that if 

 any considerable improvements have been made in philoso- 

 phy, in this age, there has been not a little owing to that 

 great man f." 



Descending somewhat lower in point of time, though keep- 

 ing still within the period of the supposed abeyance of Bacon's 

 fame on the Continent, we find Buddeus, a writer of un- 

 questionable knowledge, representing him, as having comple- 

 ted the overthrow of the authority of Aristotle, and as havin* 

 not only described the true method, but powerfully accelera- 

 ted the progress of scientific discovery $. I shall only add one 



authority 



* Morhofi, Polyhislor. torn. ii. lib. 2. cap. 1. Morhof gives the follow- 

 ing notice of a work published in Hungary in 1663, in which an attempt 

 was made to explain the principles of Bacon's philosophy. " Ex mente Ve- 

 rulamii qusedam in sua universali methodo instituere voluit Johannes Bayerus, 

 libro cui titulus : Filum Labyrinlhi, sive Lux mentium universalis, cognoscendis, ex- 

 pendendis et commxinicandis tiniversis rebus accensa. Verum obscurat potius Ve- 

 rulamii sensus omnemque philosophiam, quam ut lumen aliquod accendat." — 

 Polyhist. torn. i. lib. 2. cap. 7. The title of Bayer's work is, partly, that of one 

 Bacon's philosophical fragments, (Filum Labyrinthi) ; and however imperfect 

 his work may be as an exposition of Bacon's views, it shows that his philosophi- 

 cal writings had early engaged the attention of the learned, even in the more ob- 

 scure parts of the Continent. 



-J- Specimen. Controvers. Cap. i. sect. 5. apud Pope Blount — Censura Celeb. 

 Author, p. 635. 



t Buddei, Compendium Histories Philosophies p. 409, 410. Edit. 1731. 



