He made it a rule to disclose the real views with which he made his experiments. Although, he says, by following a contrary maxim he might have acquired a character of greater sagacity, he thought that two good ends were secured by his method—one as tending to make his narrative more interesting, and the other as encouraging other adventurers in experimental philosophy by showing them that by pursuing even false lights real and important truths may be discovered, and that in seeking one thing we often find another. He believes, however, that he writes more concisely than is usual with those who publish accounts of their experiments, and in thus refraining from swelling his book “to a pompous and respectable size” he trusts he will earn the gratitude of those philosophers who, having but little time to spare for _reading_, which is always the case with those who _do_ much themselves, will thereby be kept not too long from their own pursuits. He then comments on what he justly considers the amazing improvements in natural knowledge which have been made within the century, and contrasts these with the comparative poverty as regards scientific results of the many preceding ages, which yet abounded with men who had no other object but study; and he rejoices to think that this rapid progress of knowledge, extending itself not this way or that way only, but in all directions, will be the means of extirpating all error and prejudice and of putting an end to all undue and usurped authority in the business of religion as well as of science. “It was ill policy in Leo the Tenth to patronise polite literature. He was cherishing an enemy in disguise. And the English hierarchy (if there be anything unsound in its constitution) has equal reason to tremble even at an air-pump or an electrical machine.” He regrets that the rich and great in this country, unmindful of the example of Bacon, give less attention to these matters than do men of rank and fortune in other countries: he contrasts the pleasure of the pursuit of science with the pains and penalties of the pursuit of politics. “If extensive and lasting fame be at all an object, literary, and especially scientifical, pursuits are preferable to political ones in a variety of respects.... If extensive usefulness be the object, science has the same advantage over politics. The greatest success in the latter seldom extends farther than one particular country and one particular age, whereas a successful pursuit of science makes a man the benefactor of all mankind and of every age. How trifling is the fame of any statesman that this country has ever produced to that of Lord Bacon, of Newton, or of Boyle; and how much greater are our obligations to such men as these than to any other in the whole _Biographia Britannica_.”