THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



cannot be identified with matter or mechanical force. 

 That convenient assumption of the logoi spermatikoi 

 still plays its part in modern biology to fool us under 

 various new names; disguise it as one may, matter 

 somewhere in the chain of reasoning loses its mechan- 

 ical inertness and acquires a non-mechanical vitality. 

 Of all the leaders of the revolt against the medi- 

 aeval attitude, Francis Bacon saw the most clearly 

 that an attack against the authority of the Church 

 could be waged most effectively by first overthrowing 

 the reign of the classical deductive philosophy. If the 

 mind could be weaned from its awe and reverence for 

 antiquity, then only there would be a chance of sub- 

 stituting the new scientific, or inductive method. 

 With the grandiose plan in his mind of reviving the 

 intellectual life according to a new philosophy^ he 

 projected his Instauratio Magna which was to em- 

 brace all human activity. He did actually publish, in 

 1620, the part in which the fruits of the understand- 

 ing were set forth. The title of this part, the Novum 

 Organum Scientiarum, is in itself a challenge to the 

 Organon of Aristotle. All through his plea for the 

 new knowledge there runs a comment warning his 

 readers: "That the reverence for antiquity and the 

 authority of men, who have been esteemed great in 

 philosophy and general unanimity, have retarded 

 men from advancing in science and almost enchanted 

 them. . . . The Greeks were a vain and disputatious 

 people, the desire to shine, the taste for dispute, 



C 104 3 



