on, and
to die as the first witness and martyr of the liberty of
conscience, and to rise from the sublime height of his theory to
the seats of the immortals. Thus it is the want of the individual
which decides on the practical value of an act or of a thought,
and this want depends on the nature of the human soul. There is a
difference between individuals in different ages, and there is a
difference in their wants.... As long as the desire after
knowledge lives in our hearts, we must, with the purely practical
view of satisfying this want, strive after knowledge in all
things, even in those which do not contribute towards external
comfort, and have no use except that they purify and invigorate
the mind.... What is theory in the eyes of Bacon? 'A temple in the
human mind, according to the model of the world.' What is it in
the eyes of Mr. Macaulay? A snug dwelling, according to the wants
of practical life. The latter is satisfied if knowledge is carried
far enough to enable us to keep ourselves dry. The magnificence of
the structure, and its completeness according to the model of the
world, is to him useless by-work, superfluous and even dangerous
luxury. This is the view of a respectable rate-payer, not of a
Bacon. Mr. Macaulay reduces Bacon to his own dimensions, while he
endeavors at the same time to exalt him above all other people....
Bacon's own philosophy was, like all philosophy, a theory; it was
the theory of the inventive mind. Bacon has not made any great
discoveries himself. He was less inventive than Leibnitz, the
German metaphysician. If to make discoveries be practical
philosophy, Bacon was a mere theorist, and his philosophy nothing
but the theory of practical philosophy.... How far the spirit of
theory reached in Bacon may be seen in his own works. He did not
want to fetter theory, but to renew and to extend it to the very
ends of the universe. His practical standard was not the comfort
of the individual, but human happiness, which involves theoretical
knowledge.... That Bacon is not the Bacon of Mr. Macaulay. What
Bacon wanted was new, and it will be eternal. What Mr. Macaulay
and many people at the present day want, in the name of Bacon, is
not new, but novel. New is what opposes the old, and serves as a
model for the future. Novel is what flatters our times, gai