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upon the decision which may be given to the question, whether Francis Bacon was the discoverer and founder of the system he promulgated-whether he was the author of what he thought, or merely the sonorous mouthpiece of other men, whose names he left to languish in cold obscurity. That he intended to proclaim himself the author of these doctrines is evident both from his manner of publishing them, and from his repeated censures of Aristotle. But that he had been anticipated by Roger Bacon in nearly everything that was most distinctive in the double forms of the same identical philosophy, cannot be doubted after the copious illustrations given in this essay. That he borrowed directly and consciously from him is our own private conclusion; and that the forced loan amounted to plagiarism, and was levied, like one of James I.'s voluntary gifts from his people, forcibly and without acknowledgment, is also our conviction, though we will not demand from the public an absolute verdict to this effect. But we do claim that the highest honors which have been assigned to Francis Bacon are due to Roger Bacon and his cotemporaries, and we do assert that the friar has been as harshly and unjustly dealt with by the Lord Chancellor of Nature, as Aubrey and Egerton and the other suitors in the Court of Equity were handled by the Lord High Chancellor of England.

The claim of Lord Bacon to be regarded as the inventor, not of the inductive process, which is an absurdity that Mr. Macaulay has been absurd enough to impugn, but to be the inventor, promulgator, or sponsor of the inductive method, and of experimentation, is preposterous. Roger Bacon, more than any other single individual, is entitled to that credit, though the Arabians, the alchemists, Albertus Magnus, and others, had preceded him, and though Aristotle himself had both preached the doctrine and illustrated the practice in his own investigations. A full century before Francis Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, a poet, a painter, an architect, a sculptor, an engineer, a mathematician, and a philosopher, had declared induction to be the only sure method in natural science: "dobbiamo comminciare dall' esperienza, e per mezzo di questo scoprirne la ragione." So again: "questo é il methodo da osservarsi nella ricerca de' fenomeni della natura."*

De Maistre has amused himself at the expense of Bacon and the secret society of select philosophers congregated at Paris, as if this was an association of atheists and illuminati-as if, indeed, it was an unquestioned reality, instead of being probably a fiction, like the House of Solomon in the New Atlantis. But if it were the repre• Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii, Pt. II, § vi, p. 661, ed. Bohn.

sentation of a real assemblage in which Francis Bacon himself had in aforetime participated, and from which he had derived some of his ideas, it would be more reasonable to regard it as a society of alchemists and students of nature, for these pursuits were combined, and were actively and secretly prosecuted at that time, which was, indeed, the most brilliant age of alchemy. But, however this may be, the passage in which this Parisian coterie is introduced, is a memorable one. Lord Bacon distinctly announces that he meditates "a renovation of philosophy;" he as distinctly states that he had no associates in this work. "I have not even a person with whom I can converse without reserve on such subjects, none at least in whose converse I can explain myself, and whet my purpose."* Yet his interlocutor adds, that "others have also at heart such subjects' Is it not strange that there is no intimation of the previous and similar labors of Roger Bacon, no admission of the analogous inquiries and the congenerous conclusions of other inquirers?

The services of Lord Bacon in advancing, illuminating, and especially in popularizing scientific studies are immense. They are more brilliant than Roger Bacon's, and they were rendered in a more propitious time; but they are not equal to them, nor could they have been achieved, unless he had gone before to lighten the way with his torch. The light and the guide are both unacknowledged by him whom they illuminated. Yet justice will yet be done to the fame of Roger Bacon, and his star will pale the fires of his rival and namesake. A recent scientific writer of some eminence pays this just compliment to the poor Franciscan friar, “pauperculus ego," as he calls himself:

"Roger Bacon, the vastest intellect that England has produced, studied nature as a natural philosopher rather than as a chemist, and the extraordinary discoveries he made in those branches of science are familiarly known; the rectification of the errors committed in the Julian Calendar with regard to the solar year; the physical analysis of the action of lenses and convex glasses; the invention of spectacles for the aged; that of achromatic lenses; the theory and perhaps the first construction of the telescope. From the principles and laws laid down or partially apprehended by him, a system of unanticipated facts was sure to spring, as he himself remarked; nevertheless, his inquiries into chemical phenomena have not been without fruit for us. He carefully studied the properties of saltpeter, and if, in opposition to the ordinary opinion, he did not discover gunpowder, which had been explicitly described by Marcus Græcus fifty years before, he improved its preparation, by teaching the mode of purifying saltpeter by first dissolving the salt in water and then crystalizing it. He also called attention to the chemical action of air in combustion."t

* Redargutio Philosophiarum. Bacon's Works, vol. xi, p. 437.

† Figuier, L'Alchimie et les Alchimistes, Part I, chap. iv, pp. 80, 81.

And, as we have already remarked, he seems to have suspected the polarization of light.

Where are the actual scientific discoveries of Francis Bacon which can be compared to this brilliant array? There are none. The philosophical theories of the two are identical, only one is barely indicated, the other luminously expanded and magnificently expressed. The superb motto of Francis Bacon, "Aut viam inveniam, aut faciam," is a delusion; he neither invented nor made the road he traveled; he followed in the path beaten by the footsteps of his namesake, to whom alone it would be appropriate to apply such a device as this, which itself seems imitated from a straggling verse of a lost Greek tragedy:

ἰδίας ὁδοὺς ζητοῦσι φιλόπονοι φύσεις.

ART. II.-BRITISH METHODISM AND SLAVERY.

[SECOND ARTICLE.]

MR. WESLEY'S "Thoughts on Slavery," in 1774, produced a wonderful effect in the connection. The preachers entered fully into his views; and probably it had no small influence in stimulating the natural ardor of Dr. Coke against slavery in his first visit to America. Partly from reading it and partly from conversation with the preachers, the Methodists everywhere became fixed in their enmity against the slave-trade; and public discussions in the nation confirmed them in their aversion. The peculiar sympathy awakened for the poor blacks made the West India Mission for more than half a century the most popular, as it has been the most successful, of all our missions. And when in the end the feeling of the connection was roused against slavery itself, the religious interest so long cherished for the slave, quickened the zeal for his deliverance from legal bondage. In 1778, Mr. Wesley commenced our first periodical, "The Arminian Magazine." In that work, several articles and facts bearing on slavery and the slave-trade were inserted from time to time; and as it was very much read among the Methodists, the subject was continually kept before their mind. In 1787 Mr. Wesley again published "Thoughts on Slavery," concerning which he thus writes to one of his correspondents:

• Agathon. Incert. Fabb. Fragm., xiii, (7.) Fragm. Trag. Græc. Ed. Didot.

"Whatever assistance I can give those generous men who join to oppose that execrable trade, I certainly shall give. I have printed a large edition of the Thoughts on Slavery,' and dispersed them to every part of England. But there will be vehement opposition made, both by slave merchants and slaveholders; and they are mighty men: but our comfort is, He that dwelleth on high is mightier."

Wilberforce had now become the acknowledged leader of the abolition movement. Mr. Wesley's celebrity and known sentiments induced him to seek an interview with him, which proved highly satisfactory. He thus briefly relates it: "February 24, 1789. I called on John Wesley, a fine old fellow." With his brother Charles, Mr. Wilberforce had formed an acquaintance some three years before. "I went," says he, "I think in 1786, to see Mrs. Hannah More, and when I came into the room Charles Wesley rose from the table, around which a numerous party sat at tea, and coming forward to me, solemnly gave me his blessing. I was scarcely ever more affected. Such was the effect of his manner and appearance that it altogether overset me, and I burst into tears, unable to restrain myself." That blessing of Charles Wesley, and the anti-slavery efforts of John, show how deeply both the Wesleys were interested in that cause to which the life of Wilberforce was consecrated. But perhaps nothing had so powerful an influence on the Methodist body as the almost dying letter of Mr. John Wesley, written to Mr. Wilberforce only six days before his death. It is as follows:

"February 24, 1791.

"My dear Sir,-Unless the Divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise, in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils; but, if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary in well-doing. Go on in the name of God, and in the power of his might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away before it. That He who has guided you from your youth up, may continue to strengthen you in this and all things, is the prayer of, "Dear sir, your affectionate servant,

66 JOHN WESLEY."

A short time also before his death, he issued the fifth edition of his "Thoughts on Slavery." These two things conjoined, Mr. Wesley's last pamphlet, and his last letter, occasioned the abolition cause to be as it were stereotyped on the Methodist mind; so that the members of his society were constituted en masse, a body of Christian opponents to the anti-Christian slave-trade. He bequeathed to them by his dying acts the guardianship of the sacred cause of freedom.

That same year an occurrence took place which was like affixing a seal to his legacy, and thereby rendering it imperative and unalterable. At the conference of 1791, the first that assembled after Mr. Wesley's death, Mr. Wilberforce sent a letter to the conference, accompanied with a present of one hundred and two volumes of "The Evidence that appeared before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, relative to the Slave-Trade."

One was for each member of the hundred preachers who legally constituted the conference, and two additional copies for the president and the secretary. In his letter he complimented them on their piety and zeal, and entreated them to use their influence in getting petitions signed and presented to Parliament, praying for the abolition of the slave-trade. The conference sent him a polite answer, in which they promised to comply with his request. From a principle of conscience they entered heartily into the work, and were instrumental in promoting what appeared to be the general sense of the country respecting the slave-trade, namely: "That it ought to be abolished." The letter of Wilberforce was connected with the plan of future operations on which he had resolved. Finding that he failed to carry his measures in Parliament, notwithstanding the eloquent support he received from Pitt and Fox, the two leading statesmen of the age, so strong was the slave interest in both houses, backed by wealthy merchants and West India proprietors in many cities, he determined to make a more general appeal to the conscience of the nation, that he might move the legislature by means of the constituency, and the force of the popular will. By such an opportune resolve, at such a crisis of Methodist history, he was sure of their united zeal. Petitions soon came pouring into Parliament against the slave-trade, and they were renewed from year to year, in accumulated numbers, till the public demand of the people could be no longer withstood. And although the Methodists at that time acted more in connection with their fellow-citizens than as a distinct body, or connectionally, scarcely a Methodist, whether elector or not, neglected to affix his signature to these petitions. In no county in England had the Methodists so large a number of electors as in Yorkshire, for which county Wilberforce was member, and from their heartiness in the cause of freedom, they uniformly gave him their votes, which contributed to the security of his return for the largest constituency in the kingdom; Yorkshire not being then divided into the East and West Riding, as on the passage of the Reform Bill at a later period. He was therefore the most popular candidate and representative for that large county for twenty-eight years, during which time there had been five or six elections. FOURTH SERIES, VOL. X.-13

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