But old prepossession will find reason for anything. A learned friend of mine wrote to me that he had discovered proof that Newton owned Bacon for his master: the proof was that Newton, in some of his earlier writings, used the {76} phrase _experimentum crucis_, which is Bacon's. Newton may have read some of Bacon, though no proof of it appears. I have a dim idea that I once saw the two words attributed to the alchemists: if so, there is another explanation; for Newton was deeply read in the alchemists. I subjoin a review which I wrote of the splendid edition of Bacon by Spedding,[112] Ellis,[113] and Heath.[114] All the opinions therein expressed had been formed by me long before: most of the materials were collected for another purpose. The Works of Francis Bacon. Edited by James Spedding, R. Leslie Ellis, and Douglas D. Heath. 5 vols.[115] No knowledge of nature without experiment and observation: so said Aristotle, so said Bacon, so acted Copernicus, Tycho Brahe,[116] Gilbert, Kepler, Galileo, Harvey, etc., before Bacon wrote.[117] No derived knowledge _until_ experiment and observation are concluded: so said Bacon, and no one else. We do not mean to say that he laid down his principle in these words, or that he carried it to the utmost extreme: we mean that Bacon's ruling idea was the {77} collection of enormous masses of facts, and then digested processes of arrangement and elimination, so artistically contrived, that a man of common intelligence, without any unusual sagacity, should be able to announce the truth sought for. Let Bacon speak for himself, in his editor's English: "But the course I propose for the discovery of sciences is such as leaves but little to the acuteness and strength of wits, but places all wits and understandings nearly on a level. For, as in the drawing of a straight line or a perfect circle, much depends on the steadiness and practice of the hand, if it be done by aim of hand only, but if with the aid of rule or compass little or nothing, so it is exactly with my plan.... For my way of discovering sciences goes far to level men's wits, and leaves but little to individual excellence; because it performs everything by the surest rules and demonstrations." To show that we do not strain Bacon's meaning, we add what is said by Hooke,[118] whom we have already mentioned as his professed disciple, and, we believe, his only disciple of the day of Newton. We must, however, remind the reader that Hooke was very little of a mathematician, and spoke of algebra from his own idea of what others had told him: