ng a single process,
includes none of the ascertained laws of phenomena, and is itself an
example of the illicit generalization which Bacon elsewhere condemns. It
was with some justification, therefore, that Harvey, who knew what
science was, and knew better than most men how discoveries were made,
said of him that he wrote of science like a lord chancellor.

Indeed, it is to mistake his position and his greatness altogether to
attribute his influence on philosophy, which is undeniable, to an
influence on science which is more than questionable. Bacon was a
philosopher; but because with him philosophy, separating itself from the
bondage of theology, claimed to ally itself with science, and sought its
materials in the generalities of science, those writers who have never
made a very accurate distinction between the two, but have confounded
philosophy with metaphysics, and science with physics, have naturally
regarded Bacon as the precursor of Newton, Laplace, Faraday, and Liebig.
It is in vain that critics oppose such a claim by asserting what is
undeniable, that the great discoveries in modern science were neither
made on Bacon's method nor under any direct guidance from him--that
Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler preceded him, that Harvey and Newton
ignored him--stanch admirers have their answer ready; they know that
Bacon was the herald of the new era, and they believe that it was his
trumpet-call which animated the troops and led them to victory.

Having thus indicated his position, it will be necessary to give a brief
outline of the method which he confidently believed was to be infallible
and applicable in all inquiries. This was imperatively needed: "for let
a man look carefully into all that variety of books with which the arts
and sciences abound, he will find everywhere endless repetitions of the
same thing, varying in the method of treatment, but not new in
substance, insomuch that the whole stock, numerous as it appears at
first view, proves on examination to be but scanty. What was asserted
once is asserted still, and what was a question once is a question
still, and, instead of being resolved by discussion, is only fixed and
fed."

He proposes his new method, that thereby "the intellect may be raised
and exalted and made capable of overcoming the difficulties and
obscurities of nature. The art which I introduce with this view (which I
call the 'Interpretation of Nature') is a kind of logic, though the
diff