" This includes his patient search for
facts--nature _free_, as in the history of plants, minerals, animals,
etc.--nature _put to the torture_, as in the productions of art and human
industry.

IV. Ladder of the Understanding, (_Scala Intellectus_.) "Not illustrations
of rules and precepts, but perfect models, which will exemplify the second
part of this work, and represent to the eye the whole progress of the
mind, and the continued structure and order of invention, in the most
chosen subjects, after the same manner as globes and machines facilitate
the more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics."

V. Precursors or anticipations of the second philosophy, (_Prodromi sive
anticipationes philosophiae secundae_.) "These will consist of such things
as we have invented, experienced, or added by the same common use of the
understanding that others employ"--a sort of scaffolding, only of use till
the rest are finished--a set of suggestive helps to the attainment of this
second philosophy, which is the goal and completion of his system.

VI. Second Philosophy, or Active Science, (_Philosophia Secunda_.) "To
this all the rest are subservient--_to lay down that philosophy_ which
shall flow from the just, pure, and strict inquiry hitherto proposed." "To
perfect this is beyond both our abilities and our hopes; yet we shall lay
the foundations of it, and recommend the superstructure to posterity."

An examination of this scheme will show a logical procession from the
existing knowledge, and from existing defects, by right rules of reason,
and the avoidance of deceptions, with a just scale of perfected models, to
the _second philosophy_, or science in useful practical action, diffusing
light and comfort throughout the world.

In a philosophic instead of a literary work, these heads would require
great expansion in order adequately to illustrate the scheme in its six
parts. This, however, would be entirely out of our province, which is to
present a brief outline of the works of a man who occupies a prominent
place in the intellectual realm of England, as a profound philosopher, and
as a writer of English prose; only as one might introduce a great man in a
crowd: those who wish to know the extent and character of his greatness
must study his works.

They were most of them written in Latin, but they have been ably
translated and annotated, and are within the ready reach and comprehension
of students. The best edition in