6 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



The great change in these ideas came at the beginning of 

 the seventeenth century and was expressed most clearly in 

 the work of Francis Bacon. The part that Bacon played in 

 the growth of science will be discussed later. We are at 

 present concerned only with the effect that he produced upon 

 the thought of his time. Bacon was not a scientist or an 

 experimenter; he was a theorist and planner. He laid down 

 an ambitious program for a great renovation of knowledge 

 based upon his view that the secrets of nature could be 

 determined by experiment and that the value of scientific 

 knowledge lay in its utility. Thus the proper end of human 

 knowledo^e was the amelioration of the conditions of human 

 life. For this purpose Bacon saw that organized scientific 

 research— the study of the learning of the past and the de- 

 velopment of new learning by direct observation and ex- 

 periment—must result in the most important advances. 

 He pointed out that three great inventions unknown to 

 the ancients— printing, gunpowder, and the compass— "have 

 changed the appearance and state of the whole world; first 

 in literature, then in warfare, and lastly in navigation; and 

 innumerable changes have been thence derived, so that no 

 empire, sect, or star appears to have exercised a gieater power 

 or influence on human affairs than these mechanical dis- 

 coveries." * 



With Bacon and with the increase in scientific discovery 

 that followed, the idea of progress became the dominant 

 theory of history. This was supported by the philosophy of 

 Rene Descartes, who insisted on the invariability of the laws 

 of nature and the supremacy of reason, which, carried to a 

 logical conclusion, excluded the doctrine of providence, the 

 basic belief of the Christian philosophers. The development 

 of the idea of progress through the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries is of interest primarily to a student of philosophy.f 

 It was embodied in Immanuel Kant's philosophy and in the 



* Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 129. 



■j- For an excellent discussion of the subject, see J, B. Bury, The Idea 

 of Progress, New York, The Macmillan Co., 1932. 



