| they were chatting easily among
| themselves but sitting in rows as if
| expecting somebody. Not long after
| there entered to them a man of
| peaceful and serene air, save that
| his face had become habituated to the
| expression of pity... he took his
| seat, not on a platform or pulpit,
| but on level with the rest and
| delivered the following address...
| (III, 559; Farrington's translation).
|
| Bacon's portrait doubtless resembles
| Galileo or Einstein more than it does
| the turbulent Paracelsus or the
| unquiet and skittish Cornelius
| Agrippa. The titanic bearing of the
| Renaissance magus is now supplanted
| by a classical composure similar to
| that of the "conversations" of the
| earliest Humanists. Also in Galileo's
| DIALOGO and in Descartes's RECHERCHE
| DE LA VERITÉ we find the same
| familiar tone and style of
| conversation in which [Descartes
| wrote] "several friends, frankly and
| without ceremony, disclose the best
| of their thoughts to each other." But
| there is besides, in Bacon, the quiet
| confidence that comes from knowing