The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

Philosophy._ [Born in London, 1561. Died 1626. Aged 65.] The son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Queen Elizabeth. Francis was yet a boy when he evinced so keen and lively an intellect, that Elizabeth was wont to call him her young Lord Keeper. He rose to the highest distinction in the state, becoming Lord Chancellor of England. He was removed from his eminence, because he had sullied it by accepting bribes. He lived ostentatiously, and died leaving many debts. His name is one of the greatest this country boasts. He is the father of the modern Philosophy. Standing between two intellectual eras, he surveyed the past, and predicted the future, of human inquiry. Reverting his eye, he saw that the most acute and powerful intellects had, age after age, wasted their strength in investigating physical phenomena, without fruit either of great ascertained truths, or of service won from their speculations to human uses. Neither zeal nor ability had been wanting. He inferred that the method of those elder philosophers was in fault. Impatient and arrogant, they presumed, upon the first strong impressions caught from the contemplation of Nature, oracularly to divine her universal laws. From these laws, affirmed not established, they proceeded to solve, as best they could, all further phenomena: for, within these false and hasty conclusions once recognised, Reason lay thenceforward imprisoned. Lord Bacon said: “Have patience. Wait upon Nature. Observe indefatigably. Accumulate, without ceasing, records of the appearances. Verify experiment by experiment. Set instance beside instance, without sparing, but not without choosing. Ultimately the law will stand revealed.” What has happened? Immense and ever-advancing discovery--science created upon science--observers, without number, conspiring in the most disjoined parts of the civilized world to solve the same philosophical problems--Nature every day more and more yielding to man the service of her powers--and the wisdom of her Author every day more and more discerned in His works--these are the results which honour the school of Bacon. [From the monument at St. Albans.]