Bacon's age has been effected. Many of the most valuable and
surprising things which science has succeeded in doing for
civilisation would never have been performed if each branch of
knowledge were not guided by its own independent ideal of
speculative completeness. [Footnote: This was to be well explained
by Fontenelle, Preface sur l'utilite des mathematiques, in Oeuvres
(ed. 1729), iii, I sqq.] But this does not invalidate Bacon's
pragmatic principle, or diminish the importance of the fact that in
laying down the utilitarian view of knowledge he contributed to the
creation of a new mental atmosphere in which the theory of Progress
was afterwards to develop.

3.

Bacon's respect for the ancients and his familiarity with their
writings are apparent on almost every page he wrote. Yet it was one
of his principal endeavours to shake off the yoke of their
authority, which he recognised to be a fatal obstacle to the
advancement of science. "Truth is not to be sought in the good
fortune of any particular conjuncture of time"; its attainment
depends on experience, and how limited was theirs. In their age "the
knowledge both of time and of the world was confined and meagre;
they had not a thousand years of history worthy of that name, but
mere fables and ancient traditions; they were not acquainted with
but a small portion of the regions and countries of the world."
[Footnote: Nov. Org. i. 84; 56, 72, 73, 74.] In all their systems
and scientific speculation "there is hardly one single experiment
that has a tendency to assist mankind." Their theories were founded
on opinion, and therefore science has remained stationary for the
last two thousand years; whereas mechanical arts, which are founded