'After these shall follow the Novum Organum, to which a second part is yet to be added, which I have already comprised and measured in the idea of it. And thus the second part of my Instauration will be finished.

As for the third part of the Instauration, that is to say the Natural History, it is plainly a work for a king or a pope, or for some colleges or order; and cannot be by personal industry performed as it ought.

"Those portions of it which have already seen the light, to wit, concerning winds, and touching life and death, they are not pure history, by reason of the axioms and larger observations which are interposed. But they are a kind of mixed writings, composed of natural history and a rude and imperfect instrument, or help, of the understanding. And this is the fourth part of the Instauration; wherefore that fourth part shall follow, and shall contain many examples of that instrument, more exact, and much more fitted to rules of induction.

'Fifthly, there shall follow a book to be entitled by us Prodromus Philosophiæ Secundæ. This shall contain our inventions about new axioms to be raised from the experiments themselves, that they which were before as pillars lying uselessly along may be raised up. And this we resolve on for the

fifth part of our Instauration.

Lastly, there is yet behind the Secondary Philosophy itself, which is the sixth part of the Instauration. Of the perfecting this I have cast away all hopes; but in future ages perhaps the design may bud again. Notwithstanding in our Prodomie, such I mean only, which touch almost the universals of nature, there will be laid no inconsiderable foundations of this matter.

'Our meanness, you see, attempteth great things; placing our hopes only in this, that they seem to proceed from the providence and immense goodness of God. And I am by two arguments thus persuaded, First, I think thus, from that zeal and constancy of my mind, which has not waxed old in this

design, nor after so many years grown cold and indifferent. I remember that about forty years ago I composed a juvenile work about these things, which with great confidence and a pompous title, I called Temporis Partum Maximum.

Secondly, I am thus persuaded because of its infinite usefulness; for which reason it may be ascribed to divine encouragement. I pray your fatherhood to commend me to that most excellent man, Signior Molines, to whose most delightful and prudent letters I will return answer shortly, if God permit. Farewell, most reverend father.

'Your most assured friend,

In closing this brief account of the Instauration, it would be superfluous, after the splendid eulogies bestowed on that great achievement by some of the most illustrious philosophers of modern times-by D'Alembert and Diderot-by Playfair and Stewart

P

by Mackintosh and Herschel,* to offer any remarks upon its merits. Sir David Brewster, indeed, has delivered it as his opinion, that the Philosophy of Bacon, which, by the general suffrage of his own countrymen and of foreigners, has justly entitled its immortal author to the honourable appellation of Father of Experimental Philosophy, is after all destitute of merit; and that it is quite a mistake to suppose that the progress of science was accelerated by its publication. He further alleges that there are no tęstimonies to show that any of the philosophers who succeeded Bacon have acknowledged that they derived from his precepts the

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slightest advantage. Nearly two hundred years have gone by,' says he, 'and no grateful disciple has appeared to vindicate the rights

* Discours Préliminaire de l'Encyclopédie; Playfair's Prelim. Diss., pp. 454-470; Dugald Stewart's Prelim. Diss., ch. 11, s. 1; Philosophy, vol. 2, ch. iv. ; Mackintosh's reviewal in Edinburgh Review for September, 1816, art. ix.; Herschel's Nat. Phil, ch. 111.

If

of the alleged legislator of science.'* such a statement had been made by one less eminent in the literary and scientific world than sir David Brewster, we should have disregarded it as unworthy of attention, or dismissed it with the remark, that the writer betrayed a total ignorance not only of the history of modern science, but of the scientific literature of his own times and country. Sir David Brewster cannot, however, be ignorant of the writings of those illustrious philosophers to whom we have just referred, nor do we suppose that he is unacquainted with the history of modern science; and we cannot account for the extraordinary opinion he has put forth, unless by recalling to mind a remark made by the late sir James Mackintosh, that professors of the experimental

* Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 334. A writer in the Annals of Philosophy, vol. 12, p. 382,-it cannot be Dr. Thomson,-is not content with condemning the Baconian logic, but protests that those who have had the greatest admiration for it, have been the very men from whom science has derived the least advantage!