cience has succeeded in doing for
civilisation would never have been performed if each branch of
knowledge were not guided by its own independent ideal of speculative
completeness. [Footnote: This was to be well explained by Fontenelle,
Preface sur l'utilite des mathematiques, in Oeuvres (ed. 1729), iii,
I sqq.] But this does not invalidate Bacon's pragmatic principle, or
diminish the importance of the fact that in laying down the utilitarian
view of knowledge he contributed to the creation of a new mental
atmosphere in which the theory of Progress was afterwards to develop.

3.

Bacon's respect for the ancients and his familiarity with their writings
are apparent on almost every page he wrote. Yet it was one of his
principal endeavours to shake off the yoke of their authority, which he
recognised to be a fatal obstacle to the advancement of science. "Truth
is not to be sought in the good fortune of any particular conjuncture of
time"; its attainment depends on experience, and how limited was theirs.
In their age "the knowledge both of time and of the world was confined
and meagre; they had not a thousand years of history worthy of that
name, but mere fables and ancient traditions; they were not acquainted
with but a small portion of the regions and countries of the world."
[Footnote: Nov. Org. i. 84; 56, 72, 73, 74.] In all their systems and
scientific speculation "there is hardly one single experiment that has a
tendency to assist mankind." Their theories were founded on opinion,
and therefore science has remained stationary for the last two thousand
years; whereas mechanical arts, which are founded on nature and
experience, grow and increase.

In this connection, Bacon points out that the word "antiquity" is
misleading, and makes a remark which will frequently recur in writers
of the following generations. Antiquitas seculi iuventus mundi; what we
call antiquity and are accustomed to revere as such was the youth of the
world. But it is the old age and increasing years of the world--the
time in which we are now living--that deserves in truth to be called
antiquity. We are really the ancients, the Greeks and Romans were
younger than we, in respect to the age of the world. And as we look to
an old man for greater knowledge of the world than from a young man, so
we have good reason to expect far greater things from our own age than
from antiquity, because in the meantime the stock of knowledge has been
increased by an