Letters on England [21]
words which I heard the Lord Bolingbroke use on
another occasion. Several gentlemen were speaking, in his company,
of the avarice with which the late Duke of Marlborough had been
charged, some examples whereof being given, the Lord Bolingbroke was
appealed to (who, having been in the opposite party, might perhaps,
without the imputation of indecency, have been allowed to clear up
that matter): "He was so great a man," replied his lordship, "that
I have forgot his vices."
I shall therefore confine myself to those things which so justly
gained Lord Bacon the esteem of all Europe.
The most singular and the best of all his pieces is that which, at
this time, is the most useless and the least read, I mean his Novum
Scientiarum Organum. This is the scaffold with which the new
philosophy was raised; and when the edifice was built, part of it at
least, the scaffold was no longer of service.
The Lord Bacon was not yet acquainted with Nature, but then he knew,
and pointed out, the several paths that lead to it. He had despised
in his younger years the thing called philosophy in the
Universities, and did all that lay in his power to prevent those
societies of men instituted to improve human reason from depraving
it by their quiddities, their horrors of the vacuum, their
substantial forms, and all those impertinent terms which not only
ignorance had rendered venerable, but which had been made sacred by
their being ridiculously blended with religion.
He is the father of experimental philosophy. It must, indeed, be
confessed that very surprising secrets had been found out before his
time--the sea-compass, printing, engraving on copper plates, oil-
painting, looking-glasses; the art of restoring, in some measure,
old men to their sight by spectacles; gunpowder, &c., had been
discovered. A new world had been fought for, found, and conquered.
Would not one suppose that these sublime discoveries had been made
by the greatest philosophers, and in ages much more enlightened than
the present? But it was far otherwise; all these great changes
happened in the most stupid and barbarous times. Chance only gave
birth to most of those inventions; and it is very probable that what
is called chance contributed very much to the discovery of America;
at least, it has been always thought that Christopher Columbus
undertook his voyage merely on the relation of a captain of a ship
which a storm had driven as far westward as the Caribbean Islands.
Be this as it will, men had sailed round the world, and could
destroy cities by an artificial thunder more dreadful than the real
one; but, then, they were not acquainted with the circulation of the
blood, the weight of the air, the laws of motion, light, the number
of our planets, &c. And a man who maintained a thesis on
Aristotle's "Categories," on the universals a parte rei, or such-
like nonsense, was looked upon as a prodigy.
The most astonishing, the most useful inventions, are not those
which reflect the greatest honour on the human mind. It is to a
mechanical instinct, which is found in many men, and not to true
philosophy, that most arts owe their origin.
The discovery of fire, the art of making bread, of melting and
preparing metals, of building houses, and the invention of the
shuttle, are infinitely more beneficial to mankind than printing or
the sea-compass: and yet these arts were invented by uncultivated,
savage men.
What a prodigious use the Greeks and Romans made afterwards of
mechanics! Nevertheless, they believed that there were crystal
heavens, that the stars were small lamps which sometimes fell into
the sea, and one of their greatest philosophers, after long
researches, found that the stars were so many flints which had been
detached from the earth.
In a word, no one before the Lord Bacon was acquainted with
experimental philosophy, nor with the several physical experiments
another occasion. Several gentlemen were speaking, in his company,
of the avarice with which the late Duke of Marlborough had been
charged, some examples whereof being given, the Lord Bolingbroke was
appealed to (who, having been in the opposite party, might perhaps,
without the imputation of indecency, have been allowed to clear up
that matter): "He was so great a man," replied his lordship, "that
I have forgot his vices."
I shall therefore confine myself to those things which so justly
gained Lord Bacon the esteem of all Europe.
The most singular and the best of all his pieces is that which, at
this time, is the most useless and the least read, I mean his Novum
Scientiarum Organum. This is the scaffold with which the new
philosophy was raised; and when the edifice was built, part of it at
least, the scaffold was no longer of service.
The Lord Bacon was not yet acquainted with Nature, but then he knew,
and pointed out, the several paths that lead to it. He had despised
in his younger years the thing called philosophy in the
Universities, and did all that lay in his power to prevent those
societies of men instituted to improve human reason from depraving
it by their quiddities, their horrors of the vacuum, their
substantial forms, and all those impertinent terms which not only
ignorance had rendered venerable, but which had been made sacred by
their being ridiculously blended with religion.
He is the father of experimental philosophy. It must, indeed, be
confessed that very surprising secrets had been found out before his
time--the sea-compass, printing, engraving on copper plates, oil-
painting, looking-glasses; the art of restoring, in some measure,
old men to their sight by spectacles; gunpowder, &c., had been
discovered. A new world had been fought for, found, and conquered.
Would not one suppose that these sublime discoveries had been made
by the greatest philosophers, and in ages much more enlightened than
the present? But it was far otherwise; all these great changes
happened in the most stupid and barbarous times. Chance only gave
birth to most of those inventions; and it is very probable that what
is called chance contributed very much to the discovery of America;
at least, it has been always thought that Christopher Columbus
undertook his voyage merely on the relation of a captain of a ship
which a storm had driven as far westward as the Caribbean Islands.
Be this as it will, men had sailed round the world, and could
destroy cities by an artificial thunder more dreadful than the real
one; but, then, they were not acquainted with the circulation of the
blood, the weight of the air, the laws of motion, light, the number
of our planets, &c. And a man who maintained a thesis on
Aristotle's "Categories," on the universals a parte rei, or such-
like nonsense, was looked upon as a prodigy.
The most astonishing, the most useful inventions, are not those
which reflect the greatest honour on the human mind. It is to a
mechanical instinct, which is found in many men, and not to true
philosophy, that most arts owe their origin.
The discovery of fire, the art of making bread, of melting and
preparing metals, of building houses, and the invention of the
shuttle, are infinitely more beneficial to mankind than printing or
the sea-compass: and yet these arts were invented by uncultivated,
savage men.
What a prodigious use the Greeks and Romans made afterwards of
mechanics! Nevertheless, they believed that there were crystal
heavens, that the stars were small lamps which sometimes fell into
the sea, and one of their greatest philosophers, after long
researches, found that the stars were so many flints which had been
detached from the earth.
In a word, no one before the Lord Bacon was acquainted with
experimental philosophy, nor with the several physical experiments