In the philosophical and historical works there is no want of attention to the flow and order and ornament of composition.

When we come to the _Advancement of Learning_, we come to a book which is one of the landmarks of what high thought and rich imagination have made of the English language.

It is the first great book in English prose of secular interest; the first book which can claim a place beside the _Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_.

As regards its subject-matter, it has been partly thrown into the shade by the greatly enlarged and elaborate form in which it ultimately appeared, in a Latin dress, as the first portion of the scheme of the _Instauratio_, the _De Augmentis Scientiarum_.

Bacon looked on it as a first effort, a kind of call-bell to awaken and attract the interest of others in the thoughts and hopes which so interested himself.