3. Historic Naturalis et Experimentalis, the study of all the phenomena of nature.  Of four parts of this work which he completed, one of them at least, the Sylva Sylvarum, is decidedly at variance with his own idea of fact and experiment.  It abounds in fanciful explanations, more worthy of the poetic than of the scientific mind.  Nature is seen to be full of desires and instincts; the air “thirsts” for light and fragrance; bodies rise or sink because they have an “appetite” for height or depth; the qualities of bodies are the result of an “essence,” so that when we discover the essences of gold and silver and diamonds it will be a simple matter to create as much of them as we may need.

4. Scala Intellectus, or “Ladder of the Mind,” is the rational application of the Organum to all problems.  By it the mind should ascend step by step from particular facts and instances to general laws and abstract principles.

5. Prodromi, “Prophecies or Anticipations,” is a list of discoveries that men shall make when they have applied Bacon’s methods of study and experimentation.

6. Philosophia Secunda, which was to be a record of practical results of the new philosophy when the succeeding ages should have applied it faithfully.

It is impossible to regard even the outline of such a vast work without an involuntary thrill of admiration for the bold and original mind which conceived it.  “We may,” said Bacon, “make no despicable beginnings.  The destinies of the human race must complete the work ... for upon this will depend not only a speculative good but all the fortunes of mankind and all their power.”  There is the unconscious expression of one of the great minds of the world.  Bacon was like one of the architects of the Middle Ages, who drew his plans for a mighty cathedral, perfect in every detail from the deep foundation stone to the cross on the highest spire, and who gave over his plans to the builders, knowing that, in his own lifetime, only one tiny chapel would be completed; but knowing also that the very beauty of his plans would appeal to others, and that succeeding ages would finish the work which he dared to begin.

THE ESSAYS.  Bacon’s famous Essays is the one work which will interest all students of our literature.  His Instauratio was in Latin, written mostly by paid helpers from short English abstracts.  He regarded Latin as the only language worthy of a great work; but the world neglected his Latin to seize upon his English,—­marvelous English, terse, pithy, packed with thought, in an age that used endless circumlocutions.  The first ten essays, published in 1597, were brief notebook jottings of Bacon’s observations.  Their success astonished the author, but not till fifteen years later were they republished and enlarged.  Their charm grew upon Bacon himself, and during his retirement he gave more thought to the wonderful language which he had at first despised as much as Aristotle’s philosophy.  In 1612 appeared a second edition containing thirty-eight essays, and in 1625, the year before his death, he republished the Essays in their present form, polishing and enlarging the original ten to fifty-eight, covering a wide variety of subjects suggested by the life of men around him.