not play a more distinguished part in the productions of the philosopher than of the historian.

The human mind for nearly two thousand years, had been lulled into an entire forgetfulness of objective facts, during all that period regarding the Aristotelian physics as the highest fruits that reason could reap from scientific inquiry; and it required a man of Bacon's breadth of capacity and spirit-stirring eloquence, to throw all the energy of his nature into the opposite element, and by showing how the splendid treasures it contained might be reaped, and the errors of the Greeks retrieved, to awaken the world from its slumbers, and set it on the road of physical discovery If his nomenclature was logically incorrect, the empirical views out of which it arose gave men's minds, perverted by speculative reasoning, a strong objective bent. If his scientific method was defective, it led men to abandon pure rationalistic inquiry, which had produced all the fruit it was capable of yielding, and to explore the fields of nature, where treasures undreamt of lay concealed. If he placed the end of philosophy in the discovery of visionary and chimerical objects, the pursuit led men to the detection of the laws of phenomena, which has already tripled man's power over nature, and en riched the intellect with the possession of a new world.-Science can afford to overlook errors which balanced the onesided tendencies of the human mind, turned the vessel aside from a barren coast, and shot it right into the harbour of discovery. The triumph to which his spirit led, rectified the mistakes with which it was accompanied, and left mankind nothing to gather from the mine of nature which he opened, but the pure ore of truth. His fervent appeals still thunder in the ear of every generation, irrespective of creed or nation; while the trains of light which they leave behind them stimu late every succeeding race to renewed efforts in the path of discovery. The human mind had never been so profoundly stirred since the times of Archimedes and Aristotle, as on the day when this mighty magician spake: the wheels of science, which had stood still for two thousand years, impelled by his breath, began to move, and the spirit of Europe was evoked on all sides to impart to them accelerated velocity. Pascal and Torricelli, guided by his rules, established the properties of air, and Newton, in the spirit of his method, and directed by his hints, threw back the curtain of the heavens, revealed the laws of light, explained the phenomena of the tides, and peopled space with worlds! Nurtured in his school, Boyle transformed hydro statics from a loose assemblage of facts into a deductive science: Watt constructed the steam-engine, which has annihilated space and economized the labour of millions; and Franklin rivalled the glories of the ancient Prometheus, in snatching the electric fire

from heaven!Iuman reason, unshackled and independent, took her bent from his hands; and learned societies in every part of Europe,-on the banks of the Wolga, the Po, and the Danube, either rose up at his name, or reconstructed their plans after his direction. The collective wits of the brightest of European nations, as little inclined as the Greeks to look out of themselves for excellencies,- have paid homage to him as the Solon of modern science, and founded upon his partition of the sciences an encyclopedia, which was once the marvel and the glory of literature. The tribes of every age and nation regard the father of modern philosophy with the reverence and devotion of children; and so loud and universal has been the acclaim, that the testimony of our own epoch falls on the ear like the voice of a child closing the shout of a multitude. He has established a school in metaphysics, which, whatever may be its defects, keeps alive a due attention to facts in a science where they are too apt to be neglected; while nearly all the practical improvements introduced into education, statesmanship, and social policy, may be traced in a great degree to the philosophic tone he gave to the introduction of the same element. The politicians and legists, as well as philosophers, moulded by his councils, have placed themselves at the head of their respective sciences in Europe; and the pedantic tyrants and corrupt ministers, before whom he crouched, have been removed by the works which they patronized, and a monarchy rendered impossible, otherwise than as the personification of the organized will and reason of the nation. The splendid fanes of science, which he only saw in vision, are rising on every side, and from their lofty cupolas man may already catch glimpses of the internal splendour of the universe; and winding round their turrets, the scala intellectus extends its steps to the skies, and enables men to carry the rule and compass to the boundaries of Creation! Perfected by such triumphs, and fitted to embrace the complete expansion of natural, moral, and intellectual science, the human mind may expect to trace their mutual blendings and intricate ramifications, and behold the day when "Truth, though now hewn, like the mangled body of Osiris, into a thousand pieces, and scattered to the four winds of heaven, shall be gathered limb to limb, and moulded with every joint and member into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection."/

*The great French Encyclopædia, edited by Diderot and D'Alembert, was arranged upon his scheme of the sciences.

ESSAYS

1.-OF TRUTH.

WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate ; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth; nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant, but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth

He refers to the following passage in the Gospel of St. John, xviii. 38: 66 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all."

He probably refers to the "New Academy," a sect of Greek philosophers, one of whose moot questions was, "What is truth?" Upon which they came to the unsatisfactory conclusion that mankind has no criterion by which to form a judgment.

R

best in varied lights. pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy "vinum dæmonum," because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth, that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sensed the last was the light of reason: and his sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First, he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to

A mixture of a lie doth ever add

"The wine of evil spirits."

d Genesis i. 3: "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light."

e At the moment when "The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul."-Genesis ii. 7.

to.

f Lucretius, the Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher, is alluded

He refers to the sect which followed the doctrines of Epicurus. The life of Epicurus himself was pure and abstemious in the extreme. One of his leading tenets was that the aim of all speculation should be to enable men to judge with certainty what course is to be chosen in order to secure health of body and tranquillity of mind. The adoption, however, of the term "pleasure," as denoting this object, has at all periods subjected the Epicurean system to great reproach; which, in fact, is due rather to the conduct of many who, for their own purposes, have taken shelter under the system in name only, than to the tenets themselves which did not inculcate libertinism. Epicurus admitted the existence of the Gods, but he deprived them of the characteristics of Divinity either as creators or preservers of the world.

the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure tɔ stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea : a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth" (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), "and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below:"h so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honour of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaignei saith prettily, when

Lord Bacon has either translated this passage of Lucretius from memory, or has purposely paraphrased it. The following is the literal translation of the original: ""Tis a pleasant thing, from the shore, to behold the dangers of another upon the mighty ocean, when the winds are lashing the main: not because it is a grateful pleasure for any one to be in misery, but because it is a pleasant thing to see those misfortunes from which you yourself are free: 'tis also a pleasant thing to behold the mighty contests of warfare, arrayed upon the plains, without a share in the danger: but nothing is there more delightful than to occupy the elevated temples of the wise, well fortified by tranquil learning, whence you may be able to look down upon others, and see them straying in every direction, and wandering in search of the path of life.

i Michael de Montaigne, the celebrated French Essayist. His Essays ombrace a variety of topics, which are treated in a sprightly and enter. taining manner, and are replete with remarks indicative of strong native good sense. He died in 1592. The following quotation is from the second book of the Essays, c. 18:-"Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch, an ancient writer, paints in most disgraceful colours, when he says that it is affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men;' it is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for can we