THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 87 



form the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadel- 

 phia for Promoting Useful Knowledge, under which name 

 the society still flourishes. 



The development of science in the seventeenth century 

 and, indeed, in much of the eighteenth, was the work of the 

 scientific societies rather than of the universities. These 

 societies assumed responsibility for the progress of science 

 and developed the experimental method, which found no 

 welcome in the universities of that period, steeped as they 

 were in the spirit of tradition. As Martha Ornstein says: 



It was the unmistakable and magnificent achievement of 

 the scientific societies of the seventeenth century, not only 

 to put modern science on a solid foundation, but in good 

 time to revolutionize the ideals and methods of the uni- 

 versities and render them the friends and promoters of 

 experimental science instead of the stubborn foes they had 

 so lonor been.* 



* Martha Ornstein, op. cit., p. 263. 



