484 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
covery and the advancement of science will go on independently of it. 
The true method of studying nature had come into the world before 
Bacon wrote ; it had been distinctly described, though in general 
terms, by Lionardo da Vinci, Tycho Brahe, and Galileo ; and, quite 
independently of Bacon, its adoption had been signalised by several 
of the greatest discoveries ever made by the human race, — some of 
which Bacon even refused to admit. Probably no direct connection 
can be established between the influence of Bacon and the achieve- 
ments of any separate science. But, as De Jouffroy says, “Is it 
nothing to have seized, at the critical moment, the idea which would 
open a new era to the sciences 1 Is it nothing, in the early dawn 
of an immense revolution, to have predicted almost in detail its career? 
Before Bacon’s time no one seems to have had a true sentiment of 
the grandeur of nature ; this sentiment, conjointly with enthusiasm 
for science, he preached and spread abroad. As soon as he had 
written, the genius of observation raised its head, and marched on an 
equality with the genius of thought.” 
I have already given evidence of Bacon’s general influence upon 
the minds of men, and it was by this general influence, on the 
universities, on separate scholars, and on the reading world through- 
out Europe, that Bacon assisted the birth of the new era. His 
perceptive mind brought into one focus, beams of light which would 
otherwise have remained scattered; like an eagle he soared till he 
caught sight of the unrisen sun; he told the world what was going 
on and what was in store for it; he made the new era conscious of 
itself. In doing this, he employed the most splendid literary faculty. 
Ho architecture is, after its kind, finer than the English prose of 
Bacon’s Advancement of Learning. Kemusat justly^ recognises in 
Bacon’s writing that quality which is termed “the great manner,” and 
he envies him that balance of imagination with good sense, which 
he considers to be a specially English characteristic. Bacon, in an 
interval of short-sightedness, distrusted the permanence of the 
English language; like Dante, and others of the great moderns, he 
undervalued the worth and inherent vitality of his vernacular 
tongue; he said “these modern languages will one day play the 
bankrupt with books.” Therefore, after his first great treatise, he 
preferred to write upon philosophy in Latin. This we may now 
regret from a literary point of view, but it doubtless * extended the 
