During the years of Bacon’s splendor as a member of the government and as spokesman for the throne, his real life as a thinker, inspired by the loftiest ambition which ever entered the mind of man, that of creating a new and better civilization, was not interrupted.  It was probably in 1603 that he wrote his fragmentary ’Prooemium de Interpretatione Naturae,’ or ‘Preface to a Treatise on Interpreting Nature,’ which is the only piece of autobiography he has left us.  It was found among his papers after his death; and its candor, dignity, and enthusiasm of tone are in harmony with the imaginative grasp and magnificent suggestiveness of its thought.  Commending the original Latin to all who can appreciate its eloquence, we cite the first sentences of it in English:—­

“Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the Commonwealth as a kind of common property which, like the air and water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.

“Now, among all the benefits that could be conferred upon mankind, I found none so great as the discovery of new arts for the bettering of human life.  For I saw that among the rude people of early times, inventors and discoverers were reckoned as gods.  It was seen that the works of founders of States, law-givers, tyrant-destroyers, and heroes cover but narrow spaces and endure but for a time; while the work of the inventor, though of less pomp, is felt everywhere and lasts forever.  But above all, if a man could, I do not say devise some invention, however useful, but kindle a light in nature—­a light which, even in rising, should touch and illuminate the borders of existing knowledge, and spreading further on should bring to light all that is most secret—­that man, in my view, would be indeed the benefactor of mankind, the extender of man’s empire over nature, the champion of freedom, the conqueror of fate.

“For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth:  as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to discern resemblances in things (the main point), and yet steady enough to distinguish the subtle differences in them; as being endowed with zeal to seek, patience to doubt, love of meditation, slowness of assertion, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to arrange and set in order; and as being a man that affects not the new nor admires the old, but hates all imposture.  So I thought my nature had a certain familiarity and kindred with Truth.”

During the next two years he applied himself to the composition of the treatise on the ‘Advancement of Learning,’ the greatest of his English writings, and one which contains the seed-thoughts and outline principles of all his philosophy.  From the time of its publication in 1605 to his fall in 1621, he continued to frame the plan of his ’Great Instauration’