JUOGKA PI 1IC A L IXTROD UC TION. 



great number of brilliant suggestions which he himself put 

 forward. 



&quot; Bacon called men as with the voice of a herald to lay them 

 selves alongside of nature, to study her ways, and imitate her 

 processes. . . . lie insisted, both by example and precept, on 

 the importance of experiment as well as observation. Nature, 

 like a witness, when put to the torture, would reveal her secrets. 

 In both these ways Bacon recalled men to the study of facts, and 

 though, in the first instance, he had mainly in view the facts of 

 external nature, the influence of his teaching soon extended itself, 

 as he undoubtedly purposed that it should do, to the facts of 

 mind, conduct, and society. In order to set men free to study 

 facts, it was necessary to deliver them from the pernicious subjec 

 tion to authority, to which they had so long been enslaved. 

 Hardly less important . . . was the emancipation of reason from 

 the bewitching enchantments of imagination. . . . Bacon insisted 

 on the necessity of a logic of induction . . . and to this logic of 

 induction he himself made no contemptible contributions. That 

 our instances require to be selected and not merely accumulated, 



. . he was never weary of repeating &quot; (Prof. Fowler in &quot; Dic 

 tionary of National Biography &quot;). 



Bacon s works rank among the choicest English classics. For 

 literary style, for thought, for scientific value they are priceless. 

 &quot; For my name and memory,&quot; wrote Bacon in his will in 1625, 

 &quot; I leave it to men s charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, 

 and the next ages.&quot; His hopes are fulfilled ; charity views his 

 conduct with leniency; all nations have benefited by his teachings, 

 which will be valued as long as the English language endures. 



G. T. B. 



