the work of the witches. He was
clearly of the opinion that the Devil had even more to do with that case
than he has with most cases of hysteria; and consequently the witches,
it must be said, fared no better in Sir Matthew Hale's court than many
of their kind in various parts of Christendom about the same time. But
it would be unreasonable for us to hold the ghost of Sir Thomas deeply
culpable because, while he showed in most matters an exceptionally
enlightened liberality of opinion and practice, in this one particular
he declined to deny the scientific dictum of previous ages and the
popular belief of his own time.

The mental attitude of reverent belief in its symbolic value, in which
this devout philosopher contemplated the material world, is that of many
of those who have since helped most to build the structure of Natural
Science. The rapturous exclamation of Linnaeus, "My God, I think thy
thoughts after thee!" comes like an antiphonal response by "the man of
flowers" to these passages in the 'Religio Medici':--"This visible world
is but a picture of the invisible, wherein, as in a portrait, things are
not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real
substance in that invisible fabric." "Things are really true as they
correspond unto God's conception; and have so much verity as they hold
of conformity unto that intellect, in whose idea they had their first
determinations."

[Illustration: Signature: Fr's. Bacon]

FROM THE 'RELIGIO MEDICI'

I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an
opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that
from which within a few days I should dissent myself. I have no genius
to disputes in religion, and have often thought it wisdom to decline
them, especially upon a disadvantage, or when the cause of truth might
suffer in the weakness of my patronage. Where we desire to be informed,
'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and
establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own,
that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in
ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own. Every man is not a
proper champion for truth, nor fit to take up the gauntlet in the cause
of verity: many from the ignorance of these maxims, and an
inconsiderate zeal for truth, have too rashly charged the troops of
error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth.