3. Bacon has been charged with bringing philosophy down from the
heights, not as of old to make men know themselves, and to be the
teacher of the highest form of truth, but to be the purveyor of material
utility. It contemplates only, it is said, the "_commoda vitae_;" about
the deeper and more elevating problems of thought it does not trouble
itself. It concerns itself only about external and sensible nature,
about what is "of the earth, earthy." But when it comes to the questions
which have attracted the keenest and hardiest thinkers, the question,
what it is that thinks and wills--what is the origin and guarantee of
the faculties by which men know anything at all and form rational and
true conceptions about nature and themselves, whence it is that reason
draws its powers and materials and rules--what is the meaning of words
which all use but few can explain--Time and Space, and Being and Cause,
and consciousness and choice, and the moral law--Bacon is content with a
loose and superficial treatment of them.
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