In the consideration of the reason, he unduly despised the Organon of Aristotle, which, after much indignity and misapprehension, still remains to elucidate the universal principle of reasoning, and published his new organon—Novum Organum—as a sort of substitute for it: Induction unjustly opposed to the Syllogism. In what, then, consists that wonderful excellence, that master-power which has made his name illustrious?
His Fame.—I. He labored earnestly to introduce, in the place of fanciful and conjectural systems—careful, patient investigation: the principle of the procurement of well-known facts, in order that, by severe induction, philosophy might attain to general laws, and to a classification of the sciences. The fault of the ages before him had been hasty, careless, often neglected observation, inaccurate analysis, the want of patient successive experiment. His great motto was experiment, and again and again experiment; and the excellent maxims which he laid down for the proper conduct of experimental philosophy have outlived his own facts and system and peculiar beliefs. Thus he has fitly been compared to Moses. He led men, marshalled in strong array, to the vantage ground from which he showed them the land of promise, and the way to enter it; while he himself, after all his labors, was not permitted to enjoy it. Such men deserve the highest fame; and thus the most practical philosophers of to-day revere the memory of him who showed them from the mountain-top, albeit in dim vision, the land which they now occupy.
II. Again, Bacon is the most notable example among natural philosophers of a man who worked for science and truth alone, with a singleness of purpose and entire unconcern as to immediate and selfish rewards. Bacon the philosopher was in the strongest contrast to Bacon the politician. He left, he said, his labors to posterity; his name and memory to foreign nations, and "to (his) own country, after some time is past over." His own time could neither appreciate nor reward them. Here is an element of greatness worthy of all imitation: he who works for popular applause, may have his reward, but it is fleeting and unsatisfying; he who works for truth alone, has a grand inner consequence while he works, and his name will be honored, if for nothing else, for this loyalty to truth. After what has been said of his servility and dishonesty, it is pleasing to contemplate this unsullied side of his escutcheon, and to give a better significance to the motto on his monument—Sic sedebat.
His Essays.—Bacon's Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral, are as intelligible to the common mind as his philosophy is dry and difficult. They are short, pithy, sententious, telling us plain truths in simple language: he had been writing them through several years. He dedicated them, under the title of Essays, to Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King James I., a prince of rare gifts, and worthy such a dedication, who unfortunately died in 1612. They show him to be the greatest master of English prose in his day, and to have had a deep insight into human nature.
Bacon is said to have been the first person who applied the word essay in English to such writings: it meant, as the French word shows, a little trial-sketch, a suggestion, a few loose thoughts—a brief of something to be filled in by the reader. Now it means something far more—a long composition, dissertation, disquisition. The subjects of the essays, which number sixty-eight, are such as are of universal interest—fame, studies, atheism, beauty, ambition, death, empire, sedition, honor, adversity, and suchlike.
The Essays have been ably edited and annotated by Archbishop Whately, and his work has been republished in America.
Chapter XVII.
The English Bible.
[Early Versions]. [The Septuagint. ]. [The Vulgate]. [Wiclif; Tyndale]. [Coverdale; Cranmer]. [Geneva; Bishop's Bible]. [King James's Bible]. [Language of the Bible]. [Revision].