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Like many other thinkers both in ancient and modern times his

mind seems to be filled with a vacant form which he is unable to

realize. He supposes the sciences to have a natural order and

connexion in an age when they can hardly be said to exist. He is

hastening on to the 'end of the intellectual world' without even

making a beginning of them.

In modern times we hardly need to be reminded that the process of

acquiring knowledge is here confused with the contemplation of

absolute knowledge. In all science a priori and a posteriori

truths mingle in various proportions. The a priori part is that

which is derived from the most universal experience of men, or is

universally accepted by them; the a posteriori is that which

grows up around the more general principles and becomes

imperceptibly one with them. But Plato erroneously imagines that

the synthesis is separable from the analysis, and that the method

of science can anticipate science. In entertaining such a vision

of a priori knowledge he is sufficiently justified, or at least

his meaning may be sufficiently explained by the similar attempts

of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and even of Bacon himself, in modern

philosophy.