They are held, indeed, by appearances alone; for they do not
care what they know, but what they seem to know to the silly
multitude."[26]
These passages may serve to show something of the nature of those
external hindrances to knowledge with which Bacon himself had had to
strive, which he overcame, and which he set himself with all his force
to break down, that they might no longer obstruct the path of study.
What scholar, what lover of learning, can now picture to himself such
efforts without emotion,--without an almost oppressive sense of the
contrast between the wealth of his own opportunities and the penury of
the earlier scholar? On the shelves within reach of his hand lie the
accumulated riches of time. Compare our libraries, with their crowded
volumes of ancient and modern learning, with the bare cell of the
solitary Friar, in which, in a single small cupboard, are laid away a
few imperfect manuscripts, precious as a king's ransom, which it had
been the labor of years to collect. This very volume of his works, a
noble monument of patient labor, of careful investigation, of deep
thought, costs us but a trivial sum; while its author, in his poverty,
was scarcely able, without begging, to pay for the parchment upon which
he wrote it, as, uncheered by the anticipation that centuries after his
death men would prize the works he painfully accomplished, he leaned
against his empty desk, half-discouraged by the difficulties that beset
him.
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