The access also to this work hath been by | demanded of the Pharisees, when the that port or passage, which the divine | kingdom of God should come, he Majesty (who is unchangeable in his ways) | answered them and said, The kingdom doth infallibly continue and observe; that | of God cometh not with observation. is the felicity wherewith he hath blessed | an humility of mind, such as rather | see Novum Organum. I, 93; A.L. Sp. laboureth to spell and so by degrees to | III, 301,I, 29-302; also N.O. I, 129 read in the volumes of his creatures, than | (Sp. I,222,I.16 seq.) to solicit and urge and as it were to | invocate a man's own spirit to divine and | give oracles unto him. For as in the | inquiry of divine truth, the pride of man | hath ever inclined to leave the oracles of | God's word and to vanish in the mixture of | their own inventions; so in the self-same | manner, in inquisition of nature they have | ever left the oracles of God's works, and | adored the deceiving and deformed imagery | which the unequal mirrors of their own | minds have represented unto them{53}. Nay | 53. compare this with the later idea of it is a point fit and necessary in the | Idols front and beginning of this work without | hesitation or reservation to be professed, | that it is no less true in this human | kingdom of knowledge than in God's kingdom | of heaven, that no man shall enter into it | EXCEPT HE BECOME FIRST AS A LITTLE CHILD. | | 54. Spedding's note: This chapter ends | at the top of a new page. The rest is | left blank. | | 55. In NO Bacon says that entrance into | the new sciences depends upon their | followers' imitating the little | children favoured by Christ, children | whose lack of vanity gives them | privileged access to the kingdom of | heaven (IV, 69). cf. John Channing | Briggs, "Bacon's science and | religion", in: THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION | TO BACON, ed. by Markku Peltonen | (Cambridge, 1966), 172-199. | St Mark, 10,15: | | Authorized Version: Verily I say unto | you, Whosoever shall not receive the | kingdom of God as a little child, he