PREFATORY NOTE.

BACON, being the first after the close of the middle ages to give a new direction as well as a new aim to speculative research, was as much a critic of old as a promoter of new methods; and it seems not inappropriate to preface a survey of his system by a glance at the preparatory work of his predecessors. In the first part of the present volume, I am indebted equally for detail and general suggestion to the comprehensive works of Dr Whewell, the History of the Inductive Sciences' and the Philosophy of Induction.' I also acknowledge my obligations to the Essays prefixed to Professor Jowett's translations of Plato's Dialogues, especially that which introduces the 'Timæus.' My authorities for the fragmentary references alone here possible to the influence of the Arabians on European thought are, besides Whewell, M. Renan's 'Averroès et l'Averroïsme,' and the History of Philosophy,' by George H. Lewes.

As

regards the Mystics and Alchemists, I have principally