Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

370 FRANCIS BACON
Nine Worthies, etc.," the last item admitting of many possibilities.
Montaigne " feared to glut the world with his works " (a surprising
statement if nothing is claimed for him excepting one
volume of essays). As to Jaspar Barthius, though his contemporaries
do not bestow upon him any particular notice, yet
Bayle tells us that his works on many various subjects " make
so prodigious a mass that one has difficulty in conceiving how a
single man could suffice for such things.
When, at some future time, we are able to discuss at leisure
particulars which have been collected, and which link together
the friends, correspondents, and colleagues of Francis and Anthony
Bacon, we will endeavour to satisfy inquirers as to the
methods of these and other "voluminous writers" of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. For the present let it bo
noted that Francis Bacon's acknowledged works were neither
voluminous nor stupendous; that, on the contrary, three or four
modest volumes are all that were published under his name.
Other authors, who are ranked amongst the giant minds of
Bacon's time by the critics, commentators, and biographers of
the nineteenth century, are not so much as named by their prototypes
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Neither Sir
Tobie Matthew, Sir Henry Wotton, nor Ben Jonson include them
in their lists of great writers or thinkers.
There is indeed no weight or value in the argument that
Francis Bacon had not the time, even if he had the ability, to
write the works which we attribute to him; he had time,
knowledge, and genius enough for it all ; nor is there any great
difficulty
in conceiving the method by which he achieved his
great enterprise. Neither does he leave it to our imagination,
only by the combination of many
but explains clearly that it is
minds to one general end, and by the division of labour in particulars,
that any real advance can be made, and that it is by
examination and experiment, not by talk and argument, that
the work can be accomplished.
" This road [of practical experience and demonstration] has
an issue in the open ground not far off; the other has no issue