Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/455

Rh Francis of Verulam thought thus, and such is the method which he determined within himself, and which he thought it concerned the living and posterity to know.

Being convinced, by a careful observation, that the human understanding perplexes itself, or makes not a sober and advantageous use of the real helps within its reach, whence manifold ignorance and inconveniences arise, he was determined to employ his utmost endeavors towards restoring or cultivating a just and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things.

Bacon says, also:

And whilst men agree to admire and magnify the false powers of the mind, and neglect or destroy those that might be rendered true, there is no other course left but, with better assistance, to begin the work anew, and raise or rebuild the sciences, arts, and all human knowledge from a firm and solid basis.

Nor is he ignorant that he stands alone in an experiment almost too bold and astonishing to obtain credit; yet he thought it not right to desert either the cause or himself, but to boldly enter on the way and explore the only path which is pervious to the human mind. For it is wiser to engage in an undertaking that admits of some termination than to involve oneself in perpetual exertion and anxiety about what is interminable.

In the mechanic arts, the case is otherwise these commonly advancing towards perfection in a course of daily improvement, from a rough unpolished state, sometimes prejudicial to the first inventors; whilst philosophy and the intellectual sciences are, like statues, celebrated and adored, but never advanced; nay, they sometimes appear most perfect in the original author, and afterwards degenerate. For since men have gone over in crowds to the opinion of their leader, like those silent senators of Rome, they add nothing to the extent of learning themselves, but perform the servile duty of waiting upon particular authors, and repeating their doctrines.

The end of our new logic is to find, not arguments, but arts; not what agrees with principles, but principles themselves; not probable reasons, but plans and designs of works a different intention producing a different effect.

Finally: The preparation of the physical man, like the preparation of the foundations of any great architectural structure, is a first and a last essential. Of little value is a noble conception or a high aspiration, the noblest work of the greatest architect or the highest attainments of the greatest human genius, without a solid and safe substructure, capable of supporting it at all times, in all weathers and in all contingencies, throughout a long and constantly satisfying life. Health, strength, vigor, ambition and high spirits are essential strata in this foundation of every human structure of character and value. The human mind, the human intellect, the spiritual and the moral man, can only survive and properly flourish within a wholesome and vigorous body. So closely are the mind and body related that the failure of the one carries with it, inevitably, loss of efficiency and ultimate failure of the other. Every minutest defect of body and brain of the physical man detracts from the possibilities of accomplishment of the highest and best in the profession, in the home, in the house of one's