And Mr.
Ellis and Mr.Spedding, with all their interest in every detail of Bacon's work, and admiration of the way in which he performed it, make no secret of their conclusion that he failed in the very thing on which he was most bent--the discovery of practical and fruitful ways of scientific inquiry.

"Bacon," says Mr.Spedding, "failed to devise a practicable method for the discovery of the Forms of Nature, because he misconceived the conditions of the case....

For the same reason he failed to make any single discovery which holds its place as one of the steps by which science has in any direction really advanced.

The clew with which he entered the labyrinth did not reach far enough; before he had nearly attained his end he was obliged either to come back or to go on without it." "His peculiar system of philosophy," says Mr.Spedding in another preface, "that is to say, the peculiar method of investigation, the "_organum_," the "_formula_," the "_clavis_," the "_ars ipsa interpretandi naturam_," the "_filum Labyrinthi_," or by whatever of its many names we choose to call that artificial process by which alone he believed man could attain a knowledge of the laws and a command over the powers of nature--_of this philosophy we can make nothing_.

If we have not tried it, it is because we feel confident that it would not answer.