Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/228

208 imaginary republic, and the results which he anticipates transubstantiations of all kinds, including the making of gold), show what a remote glimpse he had caught of the promised land into which Kepler and Gilbert and Galileo were already entered. His notes interest only by their phrasing, as when he concludes that the celestial bodies are made of true fire or flame, which "with them is durable and consistent and in his natural place; but with us is a stranger and momentary and impure: like Vulcan that halted with his fall."

In the Essays (1597-1612-1625) Bacon had the advantage of dealing with a subject which he had studied more closely and experimentally than he did physical science. To understand human nature and how to manage it was his constant endeavour, though the motive for which he studied it and sought advancement was leisure, and opportunity for scientific research. The Essays are the fullest and finest expression of the practical wisdom he had acquired from study, experience, and meditation. Profound wisdom, and practical shrewdness amounting almost to cunning, are mingled in them with satire and rich meditative eloquence. His master in political philosophy is Machiavelli, the first "to throw aside the fetters of mediævalism and treat politics inductively." The effect is seen in such essays as that on "Of Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates," "Of Simulation and Dissimulation," "Of Great Places," "Of Cunning," "Of Suspicion," and "Of Negotiating." With scientific detachment he notes every means,