HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE

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secured; — all concurred in giving such a powerfulstimulus to the progress of experimental enquiry at thatperiod, as it had never before, and, perhaps, has seldomsince, experienced.

But forcible as was the impulse thus given, there waslittle to ensure the guidance of investigation in a rightdirection. Galileo had laid down very little in the wayof systematic rules of philosophising. He had attackedand well nigh destroyed the artificial and delusivemethods of the schools; but he had not (formally atleast) erected any other system in their place. TheAristotelian logic had professed to supply infalliblerules, and had afforded paths ready cut out, in whichthe excursions of philosophy might safely proceed; butthere was as yet nothing of the kind substituted in theirplace, when all these were demolished. To supplysuch a substitute, and to exhibit a perfect system, dis-tinctly opposed to that of Aristotle , was the designconceived and executed by the father of the inductivephilosophy.

Francis Bacon was born in 1561 ; he was entered atTrinity College, Cambridge , in 1573 ; and, having beenearly recommended by his splendid abilities to the no-tice of his sovereign, he at length attained the eminentpost of chancellor in l6’18, with the title of baronVerulam. In the midst of his official duties he con-tinued to cultivate philosophy; which, on his reverse offortune in 1621, afforded him the highest consolation ;while retirement gave him leisure for bringing to per-fection those immortal works on which his fame hasbeen established. He died in 169.6, of a cold taken inthe prosecution of a philosophical experiment.

But though he turned his attention to the actual la-bours of the experimentalist, and though there can belittle doubt that numbers of those experimental illustra-tions with which his writings abound, and which, at thepresent day, the reader is tempted to pass over as suf-ficiently obvious, were really, at the time, highly original