of the world has owned his mastery and has shown the results of the inspiration of his intellectual daring in following, regardless of consequences, the “inductive method,” the determination to make truth fruitful through experiment, which has resulted in the scientific accomplishments of the modern world.  Lucretius writes of the pleasure of knowing truth as like that a man on shore in a storm has in seeing the struggles of those who are about to be shipwrecked:—­

“’Tis sweet when the seas are roughened by violent winds to view on land the toils of others; not that there is pleasure in seeing others in distress, but because man is glad to know himself secure.  It is pleasant, too, to look with no share of peril on the mighty contests of war; but nothing is sweeter than to reach those calm, undisturbed temples, raised by the wisdom of philosophers, whence thou mayst look down on poor, mistaken mortals, wandering up and down in life’s devious ways.”—­(Lucretius ii 1, translated by Ramage.)

 “Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,
  E terra magnum altcrius spectare laborem;
  Non quia vexari quenquam est jucunda voluptas,
  Sed quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est,” etc.

Perhaps the spirit of the ancient learning was never so well expressed elsewhere as in these lines.  In what may be called a plea for the possibilities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Bacon answered it.

“Is there any such happiness for a man’s mind to be raised above the confusion of things where he may have the prospect of the order of nature and error of man?  But is this view of delight only and not of discovery—­of contentment, and not of benefit?  Shall he not as well discern the riches of Nature’s warehouse as the beauties of her shop?  Is truth ever barren?  Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities?”

Among the “infinite commodities” already developed from the thought flowing into and out of the mind which framed these sublime sentences are the steam engine, the electric motor, the discoveries of the microscope in the treatment of disease, the wonders of chemistry, working out practical results to alleviate human misery, and to increase steadily from year to year, and from century to century, the sum of human comfort.  Looking forward to this, Bacon worked for it until his whole life became a manifestation of his master-thought.  It may be said with literal truth that he died of it, for the cold which brought him his death resulted from his rashness in leaving his carriage, when sick, to experiment on the arrest of putrefaction by freezing.  The idea came to him.  It was winter and the ground was covered with snow.  He was feeble, but he left his carriage to stuff snow into the carcass of a chicken he had procured for the experiment.  The experiment succeeded, and centuries later, as a result of it, England is fed with the meat of America and Australia, But Bacon died after it, leaving behind him ideas which stamp him as the greatest and brightest, whether or not he was also “the meanest of mankind.”  On this latter point, he may speak for himself, as he does thus in the volume ‘State Trials’ from which his speech on Dueling, before the Star Chamber, here used, is extracted:—­