endless number of observations and experiments. Time
is the great discoverer, and truth is the daughter of time, not of
authority.

Take the three inventions which were unknown to the ancients-printing,
gunpowder, and the compass. These "have changed the appearance and state
of the whole world; first in literature, then in warfare, and lastly in
navigation; and innumerable changes have been thence derived, so that
no empire, sect, or star appears to have exercised a greater power
or influence on human affairs than these mechanical discoveries."
[Footnote: Nov. Org. 129. We have seen that these three inventions had
already been classed together as outstanding by Cardan and Le Roy. They
also appear in Campanella. Bodin, as we saw, included them in a longer
list.] It was perhaps the results of navigation and the exploration of
unknown lands that impressed Bacon more than all, as they had impressed
Bodin. Let me quote one passage.

"It may truly be affirmed to the honour of these times, and in a
virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building of the world
had never through-lights made in it till the age of us and our fathers.
For although they [the ancients] had knowledge of the antipodes... yet
that mought be by demonstration, and not in fact; and if by travel, it
requireth the voyage but of half the earth. But to circle the earth, as
the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor enterprised till these later
times: and therefore these times may justly bear in their word... plus
ultra in precedence of the ancient non ultra.... And this proficience in
navigation and discoveries may plant also an expectation of the further
proficience and augmentation of all sciences, because it may seem that
they are ordained by God to be coevals, that is, to meet in one age. For
so the prophet Daniel, speaking of the latter times foretelleth, Plurimi
pertransibunt, et multiplex erit scientia: as if the openness and
through-passage of the world and the increase of knowledge were
appointed to be in the same ages; as we see it is already performed in
great part: the learning of these later times not much giving place to
the former two periods or returns of learning, the one of the Grecians,
the other of the Romans." [Footnote: Advancement of Learning, ii. 13,
14.]

In all this we have a definite recognition of the fact that knowledge
progresses. Bacon did not come into close quarters with the history of
civilisation, but he has thro