It was for this reason that he contemned not to give his mind to experience, to making telescopes and ear-trumpets; but nevertheless he did not regard them as the ultimate and sole end and aim of his philosophy. His views of the ends of philosophy were, as we shall presently see, to the full as high and lofty as those of Plato and the Grecian philosophers; he only sought to arrive at those ends by means different from those which they pursued. They both sought the same objects—Truth, and the discovery of the secrets of nature; but while the one foolishly did this by opposing nature, and acting in contradiction to her mandates, the other did it by following her patiently through all her devious windings. The modern Baconian school of utilitarians errs in stopping half-way, and in mistaking what Bacon merely deemed media, for the ultimate ends of his philosophy. Whirled along by a steam-engine, informed by a telegraph, freed from pain by chloroform, the utilitarian deems suchlike products of the inductive philosophy, to be the _summum bonum_ of its founder; forgetful that he considered such to be but the means to a higher end, and has said that “the _summum bonum_ of human nature is the possession of Truth, for this is a heaven upon earth.” But the better to understand this, let us contrast modern Baconism with Bacon,—“ab uno disce omnes.” Mr. T. B. Macaulay, a masterly and deservedly popular writer, has undertaken to give a more correct analysis of the objects of Baconism than is usually entertained; but as it happens to be only an analysis of modern utilitarianism, we will avail ourselves of it as a contrast with Bacon’s own aspirations of the benefits to be derived from his system.[32] Hear the utilitarian’s version of Baconism in contrast with the ancient philosophy. “Plato, after speaking slightly of the convenience of arithmetic in the ordinary transactions of life, as to make men shop-keepers or pedlars, passes to what he considers as a far more important advantage. It habituates the mind, he tells us, to the contemplation of _pure truth_, and raises us above the material universe; and he advises his disciples to this study, in order that they may learn to fix their minds on the _immutable essences of things_. Bacon on the other hand, valued this branch of knowledge _only_ on account of its uses with reference to the visible and tangible world. “Of mathematics, Plato says the real use is to lead men to the knowledge of abstract _essential, eternal truth_. Bacon valued mathematics chiefly, if not solely, on account of those uses which Plato deemed so base—its application to mechanics, &c. If Bacon erred here, we must acknowledge that we greatly prefer his error to the opposite error of Plato.