The calculations of the astronomer, the investigations of the physician, were more or less a subject of talk, as curious or possibly useful employments.

But that which bound them together in the unity of science, which gave them their meaning beyond themselves, which raised them to a higher level and gave them their real dignity among the pursuits of men, which forced all thinking men to see what new and unsuspected possibilities in the knowledge and in the condition of mankind were opened before them, was not Bacon's own attempts at science, not even his collections of facts and his rules of method, but that great idea of the reality and boundless worth of knowledge which Bacon's penetrating and sure intuition had discerned, and which had taken possession of his whole nature.

The impulse which he gave to the progress of science came from his magnificent and varied exposition of this idea; from his series of grand and memorable generalisations on the habits and faults of the human mind--on the difficult and yet so obvious and so natural precautions necessary to guide it in the true and hopeful track.

It came from the attractiveness, the enthusiasm, and the persuasiveness of the pleading; from the clear and forcible statements, the sustained eloquence, the generous hopes, the deep and earnest purpose of the _Advancement_ and the _De Augmentis_; from the nobleness, the originality, the picturesqueness, the impressive and irresistible truth of the great aphorisms of the _Novum Organum_.
THE END.