It was to end, by no very prolonged or difficult processes, in absolute certainty.

And next, it was to leave very little to the differences of intellectual power: it was to level minds and capacities.

It was to give all men the same sort of power which a pair of compasses gives the hand in drawing a circle.

"_Absolute certainty, and a mechanical mode of procedure_" says Mr.Ellis, "_such that all men should be capable of employing it, are the two great features of the Baconian system_." This he thought possible, and this he set himself to expound--"a method universally applicable, and in all cases infallible." In this he saw the novelty and the vast importance of his discovery.

"By this method all the knowledge which the human mind was capable of receiving might be attained, and attained without unnecessary labour." It was a method of "a demonstrative character, with the power of reducing all minds to nearly the same level." The conception, indeed, of a "great Art of knowledge," of an "Instauration" of the sciences, of a "Clavis" which should unlock the difficulties which had hindered discovery, was not a new one.