humiliating. He was summoned before the bar of Parliament; and,
finding the evidence against him complete, he admitted his guilt and
pleaded for clemency. These are the words of his confession, "Upon
advised consideration of the charges, descending into my own conscience
and calling upon my memory to account so far as I am able, I do plainly
and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce
all defense."

He was found guilty and condemned to imprisonment in the Tower during
the pleasure of the king, and to a fine of L40,000; he was forbidden
ever to sit in Parliament or come within the verge of the court, and was
forever debarred from holding office. He never paid the fine, was
released from the Tower after two days, was permitted to visit the
court, and was summoned to the meetings of Parliament.[89] He never,
however, took any part in public affairs. The king granted him a pension
upon which he lived the remainder of his days. Thus disappeared from
public life one of England's greatest statesmen, whose political career
ended in disgrace. But during the remaining six years of his life, he
wrote his principal works, which made him famous for all time, and which
mark a new era in education as well as in the world's progress.

In 1620 his greatest work, the "Novum Organum," was published. In this
appears his _Inductive Method_, a great educational discovery, which has
been of inestimable value to mankind. It revolutionized science, and
suggested the application of the forces of nature to the wants of man,
thus opening to man's enterprise an illimitable field for research. In
the three centuries since Bacon's discovery, science has made vast
strides, and yet is only at the threshold of its possible development.
The watchwords of the inductive method--experiment, investigate,
verify--have led to the establishment of laboratories, to the founding
of experimenting stations, and to the study of Nature herself. As
Macaulay puts it, "Two words form the key of the Baconian doctrine,
Utility and Progress." Again he says, "The philosophy of Plato began in
words and ended in words.... The philosophy of Bacon began in
observation and ended in arts."[90]

Macaulay depreciates the work of Bacon, and shows that he was not the
original inventor of the inductive method, "which," he says with truth,
"has been practiced ever since the beginning of the world by every human
being."[91] Nor was he the "first person who