ABSTRACT
The first, at any rate modern, writer to direct attention to the baneful neglect of the study of character appears to be the Chancellor philosopher, who for a long time held such an exalted place in the history of philosophy on account of his progressive ideas. After all, it takes a practical mind to discern that there is such a problem as cataloguing individuals, though as in his other innovations, he was able to suggest new lines of thought without actually possessing the genius necessary for making genuine discoveries, or even following up a single method to its fruitful completion. That Bacon’s plea should have remained in his generation and century a vox clamantis in deserto is not in the least surprising, but that it should have had no echo till the middle of the last century, when his intellectual descendant, the younger Mill, mapped out the field anew, is indeed a matter for astonishment.
