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| Style | Clear and strong, elaborate and full of color, replete with images that serve only to concentrate meditation ... Always grave, often metaphorical, his style grew richer and softer with increasing years |
| Rank | The principle figure in English prose; the most comprehensive, cultivated,
and originative thinker of the age ... the first to systematize the inductive
process, to teach its extensive use, to give it a clear appreciation; and
thus the great leader in the reformation of modern science ... He belongs
to the realm of imagination, of eloquence, of history, of jurisprudence,
of ethics, of metaphysics ... His writings have the gravity of prose, with
the fervor and vividness of poetry; in this, unlike those of the materialistic
succession, such as Spencer and Mill; but resembling those of Plato, who
was loftier, and of Burke, who was less profound.
Commanding as is his merit, he has perhaps been overrated ... He did not thoroughly understand the older philosophy which he attacked, nor accurately anticipate the methods of the new. In banishing deduction, he failed to see that it makes up with induction the double enginery of thought ... In any special department, he has latterly been excelled by many. There have been thousands of better astronomers, chemists, physicians. But in wide-ranging intellect, in the union of speculative power with practical utility, he has been equalled by none. |
| Character | |
| Influence | At home, his authority, within forty years, was the subject of complaint. Abroad, treatises were written on his method, and academies were formed which expressly recognised him as their master. In France it was said: 'However numerous and important be the discoveries reserved for posterity, it will always be just to say of him, that he laid the foundation of their success, so that the glory of this great man, so far from diminishing with the progress of time, is destined to receive perpetual increase.' ... Not without justice, he may be looked upon as the inspiration of that empirical school which numbers among its adherents such names as Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Hartley, Mill, Condillac, and others of less note. |
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