It may
be followed in the spirit of Newton, of Boyle, of Herschel, of Faraday;
or with a confined and low horizon it may be dwarfed and shrivelled into
a mean utilitarianism. But Bacon's horizon was not a narrow one. He
believed in God and immortality and the Christian creed and hope. To him
the restoration of the Reign of Man was a noble enterprise, because man
was so great and belonged to so great an order of things, because the
things which he was bid to search into with honesty and truthfulness
were the works and laws of God, because it was so shameful and so
miserable that from an ignorance which industry and good-sense could
remedy, the tribes of mankind passed their days in self-imposed darkness
and helplessness. It was God's appointment that men should go through
this earthly stage of their being. Each stage of man's mysterious
existence had to be dealt with, not according to his own fancies, but
according to the conditions imposed on it; and it was one of man's first
duties to arrange for his stay on earth according to the real laws which
he could find out if he only sought for them.
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