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    HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

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    MB Estimate of the Philosophical Character of Lord Bacon . * [ From Dissertation I . by Dugald Stewart , prefixed to Supplement to Encyclopaedia Britannica , Vol . I . p . 48—59 . ] THE state of science towards the close of the sixteenth century ,

    presented a field of observation singularly calculated to attract the curiosity , ancTtQ awaken the genius of Bacon ; nor was it the least of his personal advantages , that , as the son t ) f one of Queen Elizabeth ' s ministers , he had a ready access , wherever he went , to the most enlightened society in Europe . While yet only in the seventeenth year of his age ^ he was removed by his father from Cambridge to Paris , where it is not to be doubted , that the

    novelty of the literary scene must have largely contributed to cherish the natural liberality and independence of his mind . Sir Joshua Reynolds has remarked , in one of his academical Discourses , that " every seminary of learning is surrounded with an

    atmosphere of floating knowledge , where every mind may im ^ Fbe somewhat congenial to its o \ W * original conceptions . ' ^ He might have added , with still greater truth , that it is an atmosphere , of which it . is more peculiarly salutary for those •* . who have been

    elsew here reared to breathe the air . The remark is applicable to higher pursuits than were in the contemplation of this philosophical artist ; and i | su ggests a him of no inconsiderable fmt for the education of youth . i

    ne merits of Bacon , as the-father ot experimental bhilosophy , are so ^ versally acknowledged , that it r 9 m be superfluous to touch upon P ^ here : The / lights which he has r ° ut in various branches of the

    I » , - * " ~ ¦ — - — . — .... .,,.. > T T , ' Born 1561 , died 1626 . ^ | T ^ Ours e deli vered at the opening of 'yal Academy , January 2 , 1769 .

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    philosophy of mind , have been much less attended to ; although the whole scope and tenor of his speculations shew , that to this study his genius was far more strongly and happily turned , than to that of the material world . It

    was not , as some seem to have imagined , by sagacious anticipations of particular discoveries afterwards to be made in physics , that his writings have had so powerful an influence in accelerating the advancement of that science . In the extent and accuracy cf his physical knowledge , he was far

    inferior to many of his predecessors ; but he surpassed them all in his knowledge of the laws , the resources and the limits of the human understanding . The sanguine expectations with which he looked forwards to the future , were founded solely on his confidence in the untried capacities oj the mind ; and on a conviction of the

    possibility of invigorating and guiding , by means of logical rules , those facuL ties which , in all our researches after truth , are the organs or instruments to be employed . " Such rules , " he himself has observed , " do in some

    sort equal men ' s wits , and leave no great advantage or p re-eminence to the perfect and excellent motions of the spirit . To draw a straight line , or to describe a circle , by aim of hand

    onty , there must be a great difference between an unsteady and unpractised haVid , and a steady and practised > but to do it by rule or compass it is much alike . "

    Nor is it merely as a logician that JBacon is entitled to notice on the present occasion . It would be difficult to name another writer prior to Locke , whose works are enriched with so many just observations on the intellectual p henomena . Among these , the most valuable relate to the laws of memory , and of imagination ; th « Jattet of which sutjjecte he seems to

    History And Biography.

    HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY .

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    THE Src .

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    No . CXXfX ] SEPTEMBER , 1816 . [ Vol . XI ..

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    «« .. « , 3 T

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1816, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2456/page/1/