The cause of Bacon’s error in this regard, an error in spite of which his philosophical works still remain the crowded repositories of true wisdom, seems to have arisen, in considerable part, from a defect of imagination.  Knowledge is to be viewed in two aspects:  one, that of its relation to the finite capacities of the human mind; the other, its relation to the infinity of Nature, that is, to the infinity of the subjects of knowledge.  Bacon regarded it chiefly from the first point of view,—­and, so far as we are aware, there is nowhere in his works any recognition of the fact, that each advance in knowledge only opens new and previously unknown regions of what is yet to be known.  He supposed that by his process Nature could be simplified to her few primary elements, and that from these all other knowledge was to be deduced.  But, although her laws and elementary forms may be few, their mollifications, as affecting knowledge and consequently human power and interests, are unlimited.  Moreover, in supposing that the discovery of Nature could be made certain, and that, by a proper collection of facts, the intellects of men might be brought upon a level of capacity for discovery,—­that is, that the process of discovery could be reduced to a simple process of correct reasoning upon established facts,—­Bacon omitted to take into account the essential part which the imagination plays in all discovery.

No discovery, properly so called, is the pure result of observation and induction.  Maury takes the accumulated observations of fifty years, deduces from them the existence of certain prevailing winds and currents, and states the fact.  It is not properly a discovery, although a collection of similar facts may lead to the knowledge of a general law.  Newton sees an apple fall; his imagination, with one of the vastest leaps that human imagination ever made, connects its fall with the motion of the planets, and makes an immortal discovery.  James Watt said, “Nature has her blind side.”  True, but it is only the instinct of the imagination that discovers where the blind side lies.  The tops of kettles had been dancing ever since kettles were first hung over fires, but no one caught the blind side of the fact till a Scotch boy saw it as he sat dreaming at his aunt’s fireside.

But if Bacon’s imagination was imperfect in some directions, it possessed in others a vision of the largest scope.  No man ever saw more clearly or vindicated more nobly the dignity of knowledge, the capacity of the human mind, and the glory of God in the works of His hand.  The impulse which he gave to thought is still gathering force, and many of the recommendations earnestly pressed in his works upon the attention of men are only now beginning to receive their recognition and accomplishment.  When he sent a copy of the “Novum Organum” to Sir Henry Wotton, Wotton, in his letter of thanks, said, “Your Lordship hath done a great and everlasting benefit to the children of Nature, and to Nature herself in her utmost extent of latitude,”—­and his eulogium had more truth than is common in contemporary compliments.