For we find that the greatest differences of opinion exist on the value of what he did.  Not only very unfavourable judgments have been passed upon it, on general grounds—­as an irreligious, or a shallow and one-sided, or a poor and “utilitarian” philosophy, and on a definite comparison of it with the actual methods and processes which as a matter of history have been the real means of scientific discovery—­but also some of those who have most admired his genius, and with the deepest love and reverence have spared no pains to do it full justice, have yet come to the conclusion that as an instrument and real method of work Bacon’s attempt was a failure.  It is not only De Maistre and Lord Macaulay who dispute his philosophical eminence.  It is not only the depreciating opinion of a contemporary like Harvey, who was actually doing what Bacon was writing about.  It is not only that men who after the long history of modern science have won their place among its leaders, and are familiar by daily experience with the ways in which it works—­a chemist like Liebig, a physiologist like Claude Bernard—­say that they can find nothing to help them in Bacon’s methods.  It is not only that a clear and exact critic like M. de Remusat looks at his attempt, with its success and failure, as characteristic of English, massive, practical good sense rather than as marked by real philosophical depth and refinement, such as Continental thinkers point to and are proud of in Descartes and Leibnitz.  It is not even that a competent master of the whole domain of knowledge, Whewell, filled with the deepest sense of all that the world owes to Bacon, takes for granted that “though Bacon’s general maxims are sagacious and animating, his particular precepts failed in his hands, and are now practically useless;” and assuming that Bacon’s method is not the right one, and not complete as far as the progress of science up to his time could direct it, proceeds to construct a Novum Organum Renovatum.  But Bacon’s writings have recently undergone the closest examination by two editors, whose care for his memory is as loyal and affectionate as their capacity is undoubted, and their willingness to take trouble boundless.  And Mr. Ellis and Mr. Spedding, with all their interest in every detail of Bacon’s work, and admiration of the way in which he performed it, make no secret of their conclusion that he failed in the very thing on which he was most bent—­the discovery of practical and fruitful ways of scientific inquiry.  “Bacon,” says Mr. Spedding, “failed to devise a practicable method for the discovery of the Forms of Nature, because he misconceived the conditions of the case....  For the same reason he failed to make any single discovery which holds its place as one of the steps by which science has in any direction really advanced.  The clew with which he entered the labyrinth did not reach far enough; before he had nearly attained his end he was obliged either to come back or to go on without it.”