writers, in making it a syllabus of civil history. We consider this the chef d'ouvre of Prof. Stuart, an honor to him; and that it will prove an honor and blessing to the church of God in this land and throughout the world. We would it might be in the hands of every intelligent layman, and of every minister-and especially of every young minister-in the land.

Pine Plains, N. Y., Oct. 10, 1846.

ART. II.-1. The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancelor of England. 2. Life of Sir Isaac Newton. By Sir DAVID Brewster. 3. Macauley's Miscellanies; Art. Lord Bacon. [Edinburgh Review. 1837.]

THE name of Bacon marks an era of light in the history of science. He did not introduce, it is true, the great revolution which has taken place in the state of human knowledge; but he alone fully comprehended it. If he did not begin that revolution, he imparted the true aim and direction to its resistless energies. He, above all other men, felt its mighty impulse; and, by still mightier impulses of his own, he extended and deepened its influence. This impulse became, in his mind, something more than a dark feeling and sense of want; it became a rational and enduring conviction, giving rise to a hope too great and too firm to be shaken. He saw that the most magnificent anticipations of the human mind might be realized; nay, he comprehended and pointed out the precise method in which they would be realized. All the honors justly due to the immortal labors of his predecessors can, therefore, detract nothing from the glory of Bacon. Some of his predecessors are worthy of our veneration and gratitude; but yet he has been generally, and we believe very justly, regarded as the great restorer of true learning and science.

It is a great advantage of those who have made discoveries in the mathematics, or in the physical sciences, that the extent of their services can be accurately measured and universally appreciated; while the services of those who have labored to improve philosophy, which is the science of the sciences, are continually open to cavil and objection. Accordingly, the fashion has been set, of late, to depreciate the lofty pretensions of the Baconian philosophy; and it remains to be seen whether or not it will be extensively followed. We can no longer say with Dugald Stewart, that "the merits of

Bacon, as the father of experimental philosophy, are so universally acknowledged, it is superfluous to notice them." But, after all, though the remark of Aristotle, that philosophies seem destined to rise and set like the stars, may be true in general, we have no serious fear it will ever prove true in regard to the philosophy of Bacon. The unexpected opposition, however, which has been raised to this philosophy, proceeding, as it does, from authors of undoubted learning and ability, is worthy of a respectful consideration. This we shall accordingly bestow upon it, in the survey which we are about to take of the commentators and critics of the Baconian philosophy.

David Hume is the most distinguished of those philosophers who have exerted their ingenuity to lessen the splendor of Bacon's reputation. He has ventured to express the opinion, that, as a philosopher, Bacon was "inferior to his contemporary Galileo, perhaps even to Kepler." It is not our intention at present to dwell upon the peculiarities of Bacon's genius, or endeavor to show wherein he greatly excelled all other men; for we are now concerned only with his commentators and critics. Hence we shall confine our vindication of his fame against the unfavorable judgments of his critics to an examination of the reasons on which those judgments are founded. We may very easily dispose of the reasons assigned by Mr. Hume. "The Englishman," says he, "was ignorant of geometry; the Florentine revived that science, and excelled in it." This is true; but geometry, however important as a branch of science, is only one element in the character of a philosopher. Tried by this test, both Galileo and Hume would. have to give place to their inferiors in philosophy. Descartes was superior to the former as a geometer; and almost any geometer is superior to the latter. The position of philosophers cannot be determined by their attainments in the mathematics. Neither Plato nor Aristotle could extract the cube root of numbers, and yet they were greater philosophers than Mr. Pike.

It is also alledged, that Galileo not only pointed out the road to philosophy, but made, himself, considerable advances in it. But it should be remembered, that Galileo pointed out the road to philosophy only by a finger-board placed at the entrance upon it; whereas Bacon mapped out this road from beginning to end. And, besides, he indicated the many by-paths which had led all his predecessors astray, and the many pit-falls in which thousands. had perished. He showed how the dangers of the road might be shunned, and its difficulties overcome; and, above all, he animated the world with hope, by revealing, in the clear sunlight of his own

prophetic genius, the inexhaustible treasures to which it would inevitably conduct the traveler. If Galileo made considerable discoveries in one branch of science, Bacon generalized the process by which he made them, before he knew what his great cotemporary had done, and showed how discoveries might be made in all sciences. The navigator who pursues the right course to discover, and actually discovers, a single island, deserves well of mankind. But still greater honor is due to the man who confidently points out the region in which vast continents may be found, and induces mankind to give credit to his apparently wild prediction, though they should not be really discovered until long after his death. Though Columbus had never touched upon the shores of America, yet the grand conception which always occupied his mind, and the almost supernatural confidence with which he never ceased to proclaim it, would have conferred a far greater benefit on mankind than was ever derived from any other navigator of the seas. Bacon was the Columbus of modern science; and his visions, as magnificent as those of his great prototype, and as confidently proclaimed to a narrow-minded and unbelieving world, have been as fully and as triumphantly realized.

We admit that Bacon rejected the Copernican system, and that Galileo was one of its most powerful advocates; but it is not true that he rejected it "with the most positive disdain." This coloring is given to the position of Bacon, we suppose, from Mr. Hume's passion for artistic effect; it certainly has no foundation in truth. The opinion of Copernicus, said Bacon, touching the rotation of the earth, "is not repugnant to any of the phenomena." The opposite system, said he, "at present, appears to us the truer hypothesis." His rejection of the Copernican theory was not, as has been commonly supposed, founded on a vulgar prejudice; he withheld his assent, not because he was a narrow-minded "bigot of common sense," but because he believed there was not, at that time, sufficient evidence to establish a rational conviction. Though Galileo had for a long time rejected the Copernican system, to use his own words, "as a piece of solemn folly," yet he afterward atoned for this conduct by the activity with which he collected, and the sagacity with which he weighed, the evidence in its favor, after he had been persuaded, by a person whose name is unknown to philosophy, that it was a subject not altogether worthy of contempt.

As to the style of Galileo and Bacon, the only remaining point in which Mr. Hume has compared them, we think it hardly worthy * Theory of the Firmament.

of being taken into consideration in estimating the intellectual character of two great philosophers. Galileo was undoubtedly a more "lively and agreeable writer" than Bacon. In this respect, they have both been excelled by Addison and Washington Irving. Mr. Hume has compared their style in no other particular; and in regard to this, we are very happy to agree with him. Indeed, through the whole of this famous parallel, Mr. Hume has studiously compared those things for which Galileo was the most distinguished with those in which Bacon was the most deficient. He has compared the brightness of the lesser light with the spots on the glory of the greater. We may truly say of this parallel, therefore, what Gibbon has so emphatically said of Mr. Hume's History of England, to wit: "It is specious, but superficial."

No one has gone further in denying the importance and the influence of Bacon's philosophy than Sir David Brewster. We have derived so much pleasure from his interesting Life of Newton, his excellent treatise on "Optics," and his fascinating work on "Natural Magic," that we are sorry to find ourselves opposed to him on the subject of Bacon's claims to the gratitude of mankind. His position on this important subject is certainly a most anomalous one for a cultivator of the physical sciences; but we are at no loss to account for it; he has himself fully revealed the secret. That profound thinker and beautiful writer, Dr. John Playfair, had spoken of Bacon "as a man who has had no rival in the times which are past, and as likely to have none in those which are to come." This was more than the biographer of Newton was disposed to bear. Hence he exclaims, "In a eulogy so overstrained as this, we feel that the language of panegyric has passed into that of idolatry; and we are desirous of weighing the force of arguments which tend to depose Newton from the high priesthood of nature, and to unsettle the proud destinies of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler." Sir David, in an eloquent passage at the opening of his Life of Newton, has placed him "at the head of those great men who have been the ornaments of their species;" and he has used language in regard to him fully as strong as that which Playfair has applied to Bacon. He even thinks there is no "extravagance" in the encomium which Halley pronounced on Newton,

"Nec fas est proprius mortali attingere Divos."

"So near the gods-man cannot nearer go."

It is to be suspected, then, that it is not so much the sin of idolatry which has given the offense, as the circumstance that it was not

committed in the worship of the right object. But we have not the least idea that either party has committed any such sin. And as to the controversy between them, we are decidedly of the opinion that both are in the right. Bacon is without a rival, and so is Newton. Bacon was the first teacher of the human race who effectually taught the sublime art of creating sciences; and no other philosopher can ever achieve anew the glory of having taught it, until the name and memory of Bacon shall be forgotten. In like manner, Newton was the first philosopher who solved the stupendous problem of the world; and the glory of every subsequent solution must be merged and lost in the recollection of the first. Lagrange solved this problem; and yet he sighed that Newton had solved it before him. The language which Dr. Playfair has so well applied to Bacon may, therefore, be applied to Newton with equal propriety; for "if a second [Newton] is ever to arise, he must be ignorant of the first."

The discrepancy between Sir David Brewster and Mr. Macauley is very remarkable. The latter does not consider Bacon's analysis of the inductive method "a very useful performance;" because "it is an analysis of that which we are doing from morning to night, and which we continue to do even in our dreams;" because it "has been practiced ever since the beginning of the world by every human being." On the other hand, Sir David is of the opinion that it was "never tried by any philosopher but Bacon himself." And the example he has given us of its application, he continues, "will remain to future ages as a memorable instance of the absurdity of attempting to fetter discovery by any artificial rules." "It is an elaborate and correct analysis," says the one, of a process so perfectly natural, that all men practice it; and "it is not likely to be better performed merely because men know how they perform it." It is so unnatural and artificial, says the other, that no philosopher ever tried it but the author himself, and he only to make a blunder, for the warning and instruction of future ages. It is of no value, says the one, because it is natural; it is of no value, says the other, because it is artificial. No man ever made a discovery in any other way, objects the one; no man ever made a discovery in this way, objects the other. If we may believe the one, the plain man, who seeks the cause which has put his stomach out of order, "proceeds in the strictest conformity with the rules laid down in the second book of the Novum Organum," no less than the philosopher who explores the profound mysteries of nature. If we may believe the other, "the impatience Life of Newton, p. 297. Macauley's Mis., vol. ii, p. 474.