2 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



fessor Adamson truthfully says, "it is more than probable that in 

 all fairness, when we speak of the Baconian reform of science, we 

 should refer to the forgotten Monk of the thirteenth century rather 

 than to the brilliant and famous Chancellor of the seventeenth ". 3 

 The new philosophers themselves were not familiar with the work 

 of "Friar Bacon", while they persistently praised and honored the 

 chancellor, and followed as well as they could his precepts as they 

 found them in the Novum Organum. They became his disciples 

 and "were not slow in carrying out the plan of a learned society 

 as sketched in the New Atlantis". 4 To him is due, then, the working 

 hypothesis the inductive method , wherein a long and careful 

 process of experimentation and observation must precede the draw 

 ing of conclusions. 



The third element was furnished by Descartes. He was a 

 mathematician as well as a philosopher, and hence could bring math 

 ematical accuracy and precision to the aid of philosophical thinking. 

 His great service, therefore, lay in his reducing to formulae the 

 facts gleaned from experiment and observation. "Monsieur Des 

 cartes did not perfectly tread in his (Bacon 's) Steps, since 



he was for doing too great a part of his work in his Closet, con 

 cluding too soon, before he had made Experiments enough ; but then 

 to a vast Genius he joined exquisite Skill in Geometry, and working 



upon Intelligible Principles and an Intelligible Manner 



obtained his results." 5 He also joined forces with Bacon against 

 the power of ancient authority. "Bacon shares with Descartes 

 the honour of inaugurating the modern period of philosophy. 

 Bacon's protest against the principle of authority, a principle 

 which had been accepted with more or less unhesitating loyalty by 

 the Scholastic philosophers, is no less vigorous than that of Des 

 cartes. Both alike are eager to substitute for faith and tradition 

 the independent effort of the individual mind in pursuit of truth. ' ' 8 



Harvey's chief influence was due to his achievements. Trained 



8 Adamson, R., Roger Bacon, p. 7. 



4 Becker, B. H., Scientific London, p. 2. 



B Wotton, William, Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 30. 



6 "But one conclusion emerges out of these considerations, viz. not, indeed that 

 arithmetic and geometry are the sole sciences to be studied, but only, that, in our search 

 for the direct road towards truth we should busy ourselves with no object about which 

 we cannot attain a certitude equal to that of the demonstrations of arithmetic and geom 

 etry". Descartes, Phil Wks., vol. I, p. 5. 



