necessary and wholesome. A subject in this stage,
strange to say, exists,--psychology; now hesitatingly beginning to
assume its experimental weapons amid a stifling atmosphere of distrust
and suspicion. Bacon's lack of the modern scientific instinct must be
admitted, but he rendered humanity a powerful service in directing it
from books to nature herself, and his genius is indubitable. A judicious
account of his life and work is given by Prof. Adamson, in the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and to this article I now refer you.

* * * * *

Who, then, was the man of first magnitude filling up the gap in
scientific history between the death of Galileo and the maturity of
Newton? Unknown and mysterious are the laws regulating the appearance of
genius. We have passed in review a Pole, a Dane, a German, and an
Italian,--the great man is now a Frenchman, Rene Descartes, born in
Touraine, on the 31st of March, 1596.

His mother died at his birth; the father was of no importance, save as
the owner of some landed property. The boy was reared luxuriously, and
inherited a fair fortune. Nearly all the men of first rank, you notice,
were born well off. Genius born to poverty might, indeed, even then
achieve name and fame--as we see in the case of Kepler--but it was
terribly handicapped. Handicapped it is still, but far less than of old;
and we may hope it will become gradually still less so as enlightenment
proceeds, and the tremendous moment of great men to a nation is more
clearly and actively perceived.

It is possible for genius, when combined with strong character, to
overcome all obstacles, and reach the highest eminence, but the
struggle must be severe; and the absence of early training and
refinement during the receptive years of youth must be a lifelong
drawback.

Descartes had none of these drawbacks; life came easily to him, and, as
a consequence perhaps, he never seems to have taken it quite seriously.
Great movements and stirring events were to him opportunities for the
study of men and manners; he was not the man to court persecution, nor
to show enthusiasm for a losing or struggling cause.

In this, as in many other things, he was imbued with a very modern
spirit, a cynical and sceptical spirit, which, to an outside and
superficial observer like myself, seems rather rife just now.

He was also imbued with a phase of scientific spirit which you sometimes
still meet with, though I believe it is p