METHODS OF THOUGHT. 17 



later, after methods of thought had been studied, 

 understood and taught induction almost as clearly 

 as Bacon, but he mainly practised deduction. This 

 was well, for in his period and during his lifetime, 

 few steps in advance could have been made by the 

 safer method, while he unquestionably promoted 

 many great truths deductively. Giordano Bruno 

 also recommended induction to others, but found it 

 too tedious for his own purposes. While Bacon 

 upheld induction in his writings as the true philo- 

 sophical method, there is abundant evidence that it 

 was already established as the method of scientific 

 research by Harvey, who discovered the circulation 

 of the blood, Mayo and others, quite independently 

 and even in advance of Bacon ; so it is not just that 

 he should be credited with the revival of induction 

 as applied to science during the seventeenth century; 

 he was rather the first to formulate and teach it. 



During the long Middle Ages, men had not ob- 

 served Nature ; they had studied Aristotle's views 

 of Nature, and were anchored fast to Greek science 

 by a traditional reverence. " Bornons ce respect que 

 nous avons pour les anciens" said Pascal in his 

 Pensees. This is also the vein of one of Bacon's 

 Aphorisms : " Again, 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." Bacon also drew a satirical picture of the 

 condition of natural science as it was early in the 



