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After Aristotle, the philosopher who started afresh in 

 Medieval Europe, the scientific method was Eoger Bacon, the 

 founder of the experimental school (see " Progress of Science"), 

 Leonardo followed Roger Bacon on the same line. He too, was 

 amasterly advocate of observatiou and experiment. The road 

 opened by Aristotle, Eoger, and Leonardo had been followed by a 

 host of men for generations when Bacon came forward and had 

 the boldness to expound his own logic in opposition to the 

 Greek logic. And what sort of logic was the so-called 

 Baconian logic ? It is based on rejection, on the rejection, 

 that is, of all the causes which can be pronounced 

 imagination — and when these imaginary causes have been 

 I'ejected, the one cause that remains is the true cause of 

 phenomena. Imagination, in Bacon's logical process of rejec- 

 tion, plays the chief part in it. Imagination collects /anciAt/ 

 phenomena having a fanciful bearing on the inquiry at issue, and 

 after no other verification of their value than what fancy itself 

 suggests or dictates, it rejects most of these phenomena and re- 

 tains the rest ; finally, imagination, finding one particular quality 

 shared in common by the phenomena thus arbitrarily selected, 

 declares that quality to be the " form " (law or essence) of heat, 

 light, sound, &c. Of all processes ever devised Bacon's is the 

 most inane and shadowy. 



And this is the unanimous verdict of his adverse critics, but 

 the verdict of his greatest admirers. Such was the famous 

 method. 



And what was his judgment upon the great discoveries of 

 the sixteenth century ? 



A.n observer, advocating observation at all times, would 

 hasten to acknowledge and admire sterling observations. Now 

 Copernicus, a genius of the highest order, achieves a series of 

 observations of supreme importance — Bacon sneered at the 

 observer and his teaching. Likewise, an experimenter would 

 recognize and value sterling experiments. Now Galileo — one of 

 the greatest of mankind — makes sterling experiments which at 

 once lead him to the discovei'y of scientific laws — and Bacon 

 ridicules the prince of science and his scientific results. Again, 

 an advocate of instruments would not fail to understand the 

 value of sterling instruments — and Bacon disparages the telescope 

 and microscope,' and pooh-poohs the discoveries made by their 

 use 1 Can anyone after these feats of blindness and ignorance 

 call Bacon a scientific man, or aver as his admirers do, that he 

 was governed by scientific spirit ? 



