Of course, it was perfectly competent for a Gascon whose gasconading was understood to be without any motive beyond that of vanity and egotism, and without any incidence to effects, to say, in the way of mere foolery, many things which an English statesman could not then so well endorse. And in case his personality were called in question, there was the mountain to retreat to, and the saint of the mount, in whose behalf the goose is annually sacrificed by the English people, the saint under whose shield and name the great English philosopher sleeps. In fact, this personage is not so limited in his quarters as the proper name might seem to imply. One does not have to go to the south of France to find him. But it is certainly remarkable, that a work in Natural History, composed by the inventors of the science of observation, and the first in the field, containing their observations in that part of the field too, in which the deficiency appeared to them most important, should have been able to pass so long under so thin a disguise, under this merest gauze of _egotism_, unchallenged.
These _essaies_, however, have not been without result. They have been operating incessantly, ever since, directly upon the leading minds, and indirectly upon the minds of men in general, (for many who had never read the book, have all their lives felt its influence), and tending gradually to the clearing up of the human intelligence in 'the practice part of life' in general, and to the development of a common sense on the topics here handled, much more creditable to the species than anything that the author could find stirring in his age. When the works which the propounders of the Great Instauration took pains to get composed by way of filling up their plan of it, a little, corn to be collected and bound, this one will have to find its place among them.
But here, at home, in his own historical name and figure, in his own person, instead of conducting his magnificent scientific experiments on that scale which the genius of his activity, and the largeness of his good will, would have prescribed to him, instead of founding his House of Solomon as he would have founded it, (as that proximity to the throne, when it was the throne of an absolute monarch might have enabled him to found it, if the monarch he found there had been, indeed, what he claimed to be, a lover of learning), instead of such large help and countenance as that of the king, to whom this great proposition was addressed, the philosopher of that time could not even venture on a literary essay in this field under that protection; it was as much as he could do, it was as much as his favor with the king was worth, to slip in here, in this conspicuous place, where it would be sure to be found, sooner or later, the index of his _essaies_.