nts, introduced to the world, were gradually taken up into the
common stock of mankind, and found their broad, effective, complete
expression in the literature of after generations. If we apply this
test to Bacon's life work, we shall find sufficient justification for
honoring him above all special workers in narrower fields, as next to
Shakespeare the greatest name in the greatest period of English
literature.

It was not as an experimenter, investigator, or technical teacher, but
as a thinker and a writer, that he rendered his great service to the
world. This consisted essentially in the contribution of two magnificent
ideas to the common stock of thought: the idea of the utility of
science, as able to subjugate the forces of nature to the use of man;
and the idea of continued and boundless progress in the comfort and
happiness of the individual life, and in the order and dignity of human
society. It has been shown how, from early manhood, he was inspired by
the conception of infinite resources in the material world, for the
discovery and employment of which the human mind is adapted. He never
wearied of pointing out the imperfection and fruitlessness of the
methods of inquiry and of invention hitherto in use, and the splendid
results which could be rapidly attained if a combined and systematic
effort were made to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge. This led him
directly to the conception of an improved and advancing civilization; to
the utterance, in a thousand varied, impressive, and fascinating forms,
of that idea of human progress which is the inspiration, the
characteristic, and the hope of the modern world. Bacon was the first of
men to grasp these ideas in all their comprehensiveness as feasible
purposes, as practical aims; to teach the development of them as the
supreme duty and ambition of his contemporaries, and to look forward
instead of behind him for the Golden Age. Enforcing and applying these
thoughts with a wealth of learning, a keenness of wit, a soundness of
judgment, and a suggestiveness of illustration unequaled by any writer
before him, he became the greatest literary power of modern times to
stimulate minds in every department of life to their noblest efforts and
their worthiest achievements.

Literature has a twofold aspect: its ideal is pure truth, which is the
noblest thought embodied in perfect beauty of form. It is the union of
science and art, the final wedding in which are merged the kno