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lue of the new edition consists; for they are in themselves treatises of elucidation and illustration of Bacon's opinions, and of investigation concerning the changes they underwent from time to time. They are written with great clearness and ability, and, taken together, present such a view of Bacon's philosophy as is to be found nowhere else, and amply answers the requirements of students, however exacting.
Far too much credit has been attributed to Bacon, in popular estimation, as the author of a system upon which the modern progress of science is based.[A] Whatever his system may have been, it is certain that it has had little direct influence upon the advance of knowledge. But, perhaps, too little credit has been given to Bacon as a man whose breadth and power of thought and amplitude of soul enabled a spirit that has at once stimulated its progress and elevated its disciples. That Bacon believed himself to have invented a system wholly new admits of no doubt; but it is doubtful whether he ever definitely arranged this system in his own mind. And it is a curious and interesting fact, and one illustrative, at least, of the imperfection of Bacon's exposition of his own method, that Mr. Ellis and Mr. Spedding, the two most conscientious investigators of Bacon's thought, should have arrived at different conclusions in regard to the distinctive peculiarities of the Baconian philosophy. Mr. Spedding, in his very interesting preface to the "Parasceve," suggests, since his own and Mr. Ellis's conclusions, though different, do not appear irreconcilable, "whether there be not room for a third solution, more complete than either, as including both." Both he and Mr. Ellis set out from the position, that "the philosophy which Bacon meant to announce was in some way essentially different, not only from any that had been before, but from any that has been since,"--a position very much opposed to the popular opinion. "The triumph of his [Bacon's] principles of scientific investigation," said, not long since, a write