4. Naturalization of the Scottish nation

5. Union of laws

47

76

6. Proposition towards the union of laws.

83

106

7. The Post-nati

II. Tracts relating to Ireland,

1. Considerations touching the plantation 109

Two centuries have passed away since Lord
Bacon said, 'I have held up a light in the obscurity
of philosophy which will be seen centuries after I am
dead.'(a)-He died on the 9th of April, 1626. On
the 9th of March, 1826, Mr. Peel, on moving for leave
to bring in a bill for the amendment of the criminal
law, said, ' If authority were required, I could cite
some of the most illustrious names that have
adorned the civil and judicial annals of this coun-
try, the names of lawyers and of statesmen, who
have either expressed a decided opinion in favour of
the attempt to simplify the law, or who have been
actually engaged in the undertaking. To one of
these, the first in point of antiquity as the first in
weight and esteem, I will refer, and thus preclude
the necessity of summoning other less important
testimony. The lord chancellor Bacon submitted
to king James I. a proposal for amending the laws

(a) In the dedication of the Novum Organum, he says, 'et
mortuus fortasse id effecero, ut illa posteritati, nova hac ac-
censa face in philosophiæ tenebris, prælucere possint.'

And in a letter which he wrote to the king, he says, And,
to tell your majesty truly what I think, I account your favour
may be to this work as much as an hundred years time: for I
am persuaded, the work will gain upon men's minds in ages.

of England. In that treatise, short as it is, is comprised every argument that can be cited in favour of the measure of which I am speaking; every objection is foreseen and satisfactorily confuted. The lapse of two hundred and fifty years has increased the necessity of the measure which Lord Bacon then proposed, but it has produced no argument in favour of the principle, no objection adverse to it, which, to use the words of Cowley applied to Bacon himself, from the mountain top of his exalted wit, he did not anticipate.' (b).

Never was man more zealous for improvement than lord Bacon. The froward retention of custom is,' he says, as turbulent a thing as innovation: and they that reverence too much the old times, are but a scorn to the new; for time, the greatest innovater, alters all things to the worse, and, if wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end? (c), and, as if foreseeing the present times, Kings, who are desirous that a perpetuity of good may descend to their country, will encourage the erection of temples, tombs, palaces, theatres, bridges, making noble roads, cutting canals, granting multitude of charters, and liberties for comfort of decayed com

(b) For the conclusion of Mr. Peel's Speech, see note A at the end, page [i.]

(c) Non progredi est regredi. An Indian being pursued, his pursuers set fire to the dry grass. He saw the streams of flame overtaking him. He struck a light: him and escaped.

set fire to the grass before

panies and corporations; the foundation of colleges and lectures for learning, and the education of youth; foundations and institutions of orders and fraternities for nobility, enterprize, and obedience; but, above all, the establishing good laws for the regulation of the kingdom, and as an example to the world.'

Lord Bacon's zeal for improvement was accompanied by extreme caution in the admission of alteration. 'The inferring,' he says, ' a general position from a nude enumeration of particulars, without an instance contradictory, is vicious: nor doth such an induction infer more than a probable conjecture that there is no repugnant principle undiscovered as if Samuel should have rested in those sons of Jesse which were brought before him in the house, and should not have sought David who was absent in the field.' Upon this principle his art of invention is founded in which his tables are tests for the detection of latent evil under apparent good, not only in natural philosophy but in morals and legislation. (d)

(d) Etiam dubitabit quispiam potius quam objiciet; utrum nos de naturali tantum philosophia, an etiam de scientiis reliquis, logicis, ethicis, politicis, secundum viam nostram perficiendis loquamur. At nos certe de universis hæc, quæ dicta sunt, intelligimus atque quemadmodum vulgaris logica, quæ regit res per syllogismum, non tantum ad naturales, sed ad omnes scientias pertinet; ita et nostra, quæ procedit per inductionem, omnia complectitur. Tam enim historiam et tabulas inveniendi conficimus de ira, metu, et verecundia, et similibus, ac etiam de exemplis rerum civilium: nec min us de

Zealous as Lord Bacon was for improvement it was not his nature to fix upon temporary evils, "nubecula est cito transibit," nor to suggest temporary remedies which are confined within the circle of an age or a nation, and like fruitful showers, profitable and good as they are, serve but for a season and for the latitude of ground where they fall:' but he fixed upon constant defects and suggested remedies, like the benefits of heaven, permanent and universal. He, therefore, invariably endeavours to discover general truths as the root or stem from which particular truths proceed. (e)

It was the custom of Lord Bacon, before he attempted to advance any science, to remove the obstacles by which its advance was impeded. His treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum,' opens not with

motibus mentalibus memoriæ, compositionis et divisionis, judicii, et reliquorum; quam de calido et frigido, aut luce, aut vegetatione, aut similibus.' Aph. 127.

(e) The partitions of knowledge are not like several lines. that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs: Is not the precept of a musician, to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord or sweet accord, alike true in affection? Is not the trope of music, to avoid or slide from the close or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric of deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing of light upon the water? And amongst the distempers of learning, he says, after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men have abandoned universality, or philosophia prima;' which cannot but cease and