t the
great philosopher was fully alive to the danger both to religion and to
science arising from their mixture. He declares that the "corruption of
philosophy from superstition and theology introduced the greatest amount
of evil both into whole systems of philosophy and into their parts." He
denounces those who "have endeavoured to found a natural philosophy on
the books of Genesis and Job and other sacred Scriptures, so 'seeking
the dead among the living.'" He speaks of the result as "an unwholesome
mixture of things human and divine; not merely fantastic philosophy, but
heretical religion."

He refers to the opposition of the fathers to the doctrine of the
rotundity of the earth, and says that, "thanks to some of them, you may
find the approach to any kind of philosophy, however improved, entirely
closed up." He charges that some of these divines are "afraid lest
perhaps a deeper inquiry into nature should, penetrate beyond the
allowed limits of sobriety"; and finally speaks of theologians as
sometimes craftily conjecturing that, if science be little understood,
"each single thing can be referred more easily to the hand and rod of
God," and says, "THIS IS NOTHING MORE OR LESS THAN WISHING TO PLEASE GOD
BY A LIE."

No man who has reflected much upon the annals of his race can, without a
feeling of awe, come into the presence of such clearness of insight and
boldness of utterance, and the first thought of the reader is that, of
all men, Francis Bacon is the most free from the unfortunate bias he
condemns; that he, certainly, can not be deluded into the old path.
But as we go on through his main work we are surprised to find that the
strong arm of Aquinas has been stretched over the intervening ages, and
has laid hold upon this master-thinker of the seventeenth century; for
only a few chapters beyond those containing the citations already made
we find Bacon alluding to the recent voyage of Columbus, and speaking of
the prophecy of Daniel regarding the latter days, that "many shall
run to and fro, and knowledge be increased," as clearly signifying
"that... the circumnavigation of the world and the increase of science
should happen in the same age."(279)

(279) See the Novum Organon, translated by the Rev. G. W. Kitchin,
Oxford, 1855, chaps. lxv and lxxxix.

In his great work on the Advancement of Learning the firm grasp which
the methods he condemned held upon him is shown yet more clearly. In the
first bo