In great part, this fact is the result of the condition in which Lord Bacon left his works, the manner of their composition, and their intrinsic defects. He did not publish them in any systematic order, but printed one after another, as it was written, or as extraneous circumstances might induce. Nor did he leave his system complete in any one treatise. His mind discursive, his imagination easily fired, he seized subject after subject and discussed each in a separate treatise, all with more or less reference to a general plan, but not embodied in any consecutive and harmonious development. The growth of his ideas, the changes of his views, as his life advanced, are manifest in the want of connection, as well as in the connection, of these various fragments. Dr. Rawley, his chaplain, says,--and it is a marvellous illustration of Bacon's diligence and desire for perfection,--"I myself have seen, at the least, twelve copies of the 'Instauration,' revised year by year, one after another, and every year altered and amended in the frame thereof." Such, then, being the state of Bacon's works at his death, much was left to the judgment of his editors, and, unfortunately, the labor of editing his books has, up to the present time, fallen into hands wanting in competence and discretion. It has consequently been a task of special difficulty to get from the ill-arranged mass of Bacon's writings a satisfactory view of the essential elements of his philosophy and a just knowledge of his final opinions.