and the system of Aristotle, which was the basis of all philosophy in those days, to be a childish delusion, since in the course of centuries it had “produced no fruit, but only a jungle of dry and useless branches.”  Strange, even for a sophomore of fourteen, thus to condemn the whole system of the universities; but such was the boy, and the system!  Next year, in order to continue his education, he accompanied the English ambassador to France, where he is said to have busied himself chiefly with the practical studies of statistics and diplomacy.

Two years later he was recalled to London by the death of his father.  Without money, and naturally with expensive tastes, he applied to his Uncle Burleigh for a lucrative position.  It was in this application that he used the expression, so characteristic of the Elizabethan Age, that he “had taken all knowledge for his province.”  Burleigh, who misjudged him as a dreamer and self-seeker, not only refused to help him at the court but successfully opposed his advancement by Elizabeth.  Bacon then took up the study of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1582.  That he had not lost his philosophy in the mazes of the law is shown by his tract, written about this time, “On the Greatest Birth of Time,” which was a plea for his inductive system of philosophy, reasoning from many facts to one law, rather than from an assumed law to particular facts, which was the deductive method that had been in use for centuries.  In his famous plea for progress Bacon demanded three things:  the free investigation of nature, the discovery of facts instead of theories, and the verification of results by experiment rather than by argument.  In our day these are the A, B, C of science, but in Bacon’s time they seemed revolutionary.

As a lawyer he became immediately successful; his knowledge and power of pleading became widely known, and it was almost at the beginning of his career that Jonson wrote, “The fear of every one that heard him speak was that he should make an end.”  The publication of his Essays added greatly to his fame; but Bacon was not content.  His head was buzzing with huge schemes,—­the pacification of unhappy Ireland, the simplification of English law, the reform of the church, the study of nature, the establishment of a new philosophy.  Meanwhile, sad to say, he played the game of politics for his personal advantage.  He devoted himself to Essex, the young and dangerous favorite of the queen, won his friendship, and then used him skillfully to better his own position.  When the earl was tried for treason it was partly, at least, through Bacon’s efforts that he was convicted and beheaded; and though Bacon claims to have been actuated by a high sense of justice, we are not convinced that he understood either justice or friendship in appearing as queen’s counsel against the man who had befriended him.  His coldbloodedness and lack of moral sensitiveness appear even in his essays on “Love” and “Friendship.”  Indeed, we can understand his life only upon the theory that his intellectuality left him cold and dead to the higher sentiments of our humanity.