of Edinburgh, Session 1877-78. 479 
indicate its connection with those studies which Bacon had 
originated. Lastly, I may perhaps be allowed to quote the well- 
known lines from the Ode to the Royal Society , by Cowley, 
himself one of the earliest fellows, in which, after detailing the 
futility of the early philosophy, he says : — 
“ From these and all long errors of the way, 
In which our wandering predecessors went, 
And, like th’ old Hebrews, many years did stray 
In deserts but of small extent, 
Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last, 
The barren wilderness he past, 
Bid on the very border stand 
Of the blest promised land, 
And from the mountain-top of his exalted wit, 
Saw it himself, and showed us it.” 
Runo Fischer says that Bacon was an “ epoch-making ” thinker, 
who put men into a new attitude towards things, and opened a new 
world of possibilities. I think that it would be more strictly true 
to say that Bacon was an “ epoch-marking ” man, a herald and fugle- 
man, created and sent forward by his epoch. He was himself 
unconscious of that ; he thought of himself as a solitary worker ; he 
fancied that he derived nothing from others. He mentions his own 
case as a source of encouragement, and says: — “ Some hope might, I 
think, be afforded by my own example ; and I do not say this for 
the sake of boasting, but because it may be useful. If any feel a 
want of confidence, let them look at me, who of all my contem- 
poraries have been most engaged in public affairs, who am of 
somewhat infirm health (which of itself occasions great loss of time), 
and who in this matter have assuredly been the first explorer, 
neither following' in the steps of another, nor communicating with a 
single individual, but who, nevertheless, by entering firmly on the 
right way, and in submitting my mind to things , have, methinks, to 
Some extent advanced these matters.” It is true that Bacon, in 
solitary meditation, during the intervals of the law courts and State 
affairs, built up the fabric of his philosophy, as a poet builds up an 
epic poem or a drama. In 1605 he published his Advancement of 
Learning , which was meant to be a map of the existing state of 
human knowledge in all its various provinces, with a note of the 
facts in which knowledge was deficient, and an exhortation to supply 
3 s 
VOL. IX. 
