do not mean to say that he laid down his principle in
these words, or that he carried it to the utmost extreme: we mean that
Bacon's ruling idea was the {77} collection of enormous masses of facts,
and then digested processes of arrangement and elimination, so artistically
contrived, that a man of common intelligence, without any unusual sagacity,
should be able to announce the truth sought for. Let Bacon speak for
himself, in his editor's English:

"But the course I propose for the discovery of sciences is such as leaves
but little to the acuteness and strength of wits, but places all wits and
understandings nearly on a level. For, as in the drawing of a straight line
or a perfect circle, much depends on the steadiness and practice of the
hand, if it be done by aim of hand only, but if with the aid of rule or
compass little or nothing, so it is exactly with my plan.... For my way of
discovering sciences goes far to level men's wits, and leaves but little to
individual excellence; because it performs everything by the surest rules
and demonstrations."

To show that we do not strain Bacon's meaning, we add what is said by
Hooke,[118] whom we have already mentioned as his professed disciple, and,
we believe, his only disciple of the day of Newton. We must, however,
remind the reader that Hooke was very little of a mathematician, and spoke
of algebra from his own idea of what others had told him:

"The intellect is not to be suffered to act without its helps, but is
continually to be assisted by some method or engine, which shall be as a
guide to regulate its actions, so as that it shall not be able to act
amiss. Of this engine, no man except the incomparable Verulam hath had any
thoughts and he indeed hath promoted it to a very good pitch; but there is
yet somewhat more to be added, which he seemed to want time to complete. By
this, as by that {78} art of algebra in geometry, 'twill be very easy to
proceed in any natural inquiry, regularly and certainly.... For as 'tis
very hard for the most acute wit to find out any difficult problem in
geometry without the help of algebra ... and altogether as easy for the
meanest capacity acting by that method to complete and perfect it, so will
it be in the inquiry after natural knowledge."

Bacon did not live to mature the whole of this plan. Are we really to
believe that if he had completed the _Instauratio_ we who write this--and
who feel ourselves growing bigger as we write it-