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PREFACE.

JORD BACON, in the midst of his laborious occupations, published, in the year 1605, his celebrated work The Advancement of Learning, which profeffes to be a furvey of the then existing Knowledge, with a defignation of the parts of Science which were unexplored; the cultivated parts of the intellectual World and the defarts; a finished picture with an outline of what was untouched.

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Within the outline is included the whole of Science. After having examined the objections to Learning;—the advantages of Learning; — the places of learning or Univerfities;—the books of Learning or Libraries, the shrines where all the lics of the ancient Saints, full of true Virtue, and that without delufion or imposture, are preferved and reposed; — after having thus cleared the way, and, as it were, made filence to have the true nature of Learning better heard and understood, he inveftigates all Knowledge:

ift. Relating to the Memory, or History. 2nd. Relating to the Imagination, or Poetry.

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3rd. Relating to the Understanding, or Philofophy.

Such is the outline: within it the work is minutely arranged, abounds with great felicity of expreffion, and nervous language: but not contenting himself, by such arrangement, with the mere exhibition of Truth, he adorned it with familiar, fimple, and fplendid imagery.

When speaking of the error of common minds retiring from active life, he says, Pythagoras, being afked what he was, anfwered, that if Hiero were ever at the Olympic games, he knew the manner, that fome came as merchants to utter their commodities, and fome came to make good cheer, and fome came to look on, and that he was one of them that came to look on; but men must know, that in this theatre of man's life, it is referved only for GOD and Angels to be lookers on. So, when explaining the danger to which Intellect is exposed of running out into fenfuality on its retirement from active life, he fays, in another work, When I was chancellor I told Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, that I would willingly forbear the honour to get rid of the burthen; that I had always a defire to lead a private life. Gondomar anfwered, that he would tell me a tale; My lord, there was once an old Rat that would needs leave the World; he acquainted the young Rats that he would retire into his hole, and spend his days in folitude, and commanded them to respect his philofophical feclufion. They forbore two or three days; at last one, hardier than his fellows, ventured

in to fee how he did; he entered, and found him fitting in the midst of a rich parmesan Cheese.

In fuch familiar explanations did he indulge himself: it being his object not to inflate trifles into marvels, but to reduce marvels to plain things. Of thefe fimple modes of illuftrating truth it appears, from a volume of Apothegms, published in the decline of his life, and a recommendation of them, in this treatise, as a useful appendage to History, that he had formed a collection.

When the fubject required it, he, without departing from fimplicity, selected images of a higher nature; as, when explaining how the Body acts upon the Mind, and anticipating the common senselefs obfervation, that fuch investigations are injurious to Religion, Do not, he says, imagine that inquiries of this nature question the immortality of the Soul, or derogate from its fovereignty over the Body. The infant in its mother's womb partakes of the accidents of its mother, but is feparable in due season. So, too, when explaining that the body is decompofed by the depredation of innate spirit and of ambient air, and that if the action of these causes can be prevented, the body will defy decompofition : Have you never, he fays, feen a Fly in Amber, more beautifully entombed than an Egyptian monarch? and, when speaking of the resemblance in the different parts of Nature, and calling upon his readers to observe that truths are general, he says, Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in Mufic the fame with the playing of light upon the Water,

Splendet tremulo fub lumine pontus.

Such are his beautiful and playful modes of familiarizing abstruse subjects: but to fuch inftances he did not confine himself. He was too well acquainted with our Nature, merely to explain Truth without occafionally raising the mind by noble and lofty images to love it.

It must not be fuppofed that, because he illuftrated his thoughts, he was misled by Imagination, which never had precedence, but always followed in the train of his Reason: or, because he had recourse to Arrangement, that he was enflaved by Method, which he always disliked, as impeding the progrefs of Knowledge. It is, therefore, his constant admonition, that a plain, unadorned style, in Aphorifms, is the proper style for Philosophy; and in Aphorifms the Novum Organum and his tract on Univerfal Justice are compofed. But, although this was his general opinion; although he was too well acquainted with what he terms the Idols of the Mind, to be diverted from Truth by the love of order; yet knowing the charms of Theory and System, and the neceffity of adopting them to infure a favourable reception for abftrufe works, he did not reject these garlands, at once the ornament and fetters of Science. They may now, perhaps, be laid afide, and the noble Temple which he raised may be destroyed; but its gorgeous magnificence will never be forgotten, and amidst the ruins a noble Statue will be seen by every true worshipper of beauty and of Knowledge.

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