Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 3.djvu/12

 Learning," in which he takes account of the progress in human knowledge to his own day. The second part is the famous "Novum Organum," or "New Instrument"; a description of the method of induction based on observation and experiment, by which he believed future progress was to be made. The later parts consist chiefly of fragmentary collections of natural phenomena, and tentative suggestions of the philosophy which was to result from the application of his method to the facts of the physical world.

Bacon's own experiments are of slight scientific value, nor was he very familiar with some of the most important discoveries of his own day; but the fundamental principles laid down by him form the foundation of modern scientific method.

''Bacon's writings are by no means confined to the field of natural philosophy. He wrote a notable "History of Henry VII"; many pamphlets on current political topics; "The New Atlantis," an unfinished account of an ideal state; "The Wisdom of the Ancients," a series of interpretations of classical myths in an allegorical sense; legal "Maxims"; and much else.''

''But by far his most popular work is his "Essays," published in three editions in his lifetime, the first containing ten essays, in 1597; the second, with thirty-eight, in 1612; and the third, as here printed, in 1625. These richly condensed utterances on men and affairs show in the field of conduct something of the same stress on the useful and the expedient as appears in his scientific work. But it is unjust to regard the "Essays" as representing Bacon's ideal of conduct. They are rather a collection of shrewd observations as to how, in fact, men do get on in life; human nature, not as it ought to be, but as it is. Sometimes, but by no means always, they consider certain kinds of behavior from a moral standpoint; oftener they are frankly pieces of worldly wisdom; again, they show Bacon's ideas of state policy; still again, as in the essay "Of Gardens," they show us his private enthusiasms. They cover an immense variety of topics; they are written in a clear, concise, at times almost epigrammatic, style; they are packed with matter; and now, as when he wrote them, they, to use his own words of them, "come home to men's business and bosoms."''