1,1 B 





FIG. 51. FRANCIS BACON. 



CHAPTER VI. 



FRANCIS HAC6N. 



"1 If 7E have already seen how the teaching, and discoveries of Coper- 

 VV nicus, Kepler, and Galileo shook the authority of Aristotle, 

 who for two thousand years had reigned paramount in the schools. 

 The doctrines which for so many ages men had been taught to believe 

 as the fundamental truths of nature such as the unchangeability of 

 the heavens, and the existence of crystalline orbs carrying the planets 

 round the earth had not only been called in question, but had been 

 proved to have no foundation in fact. And now a contemporary of 

 the renowned astronomers whose names have just been mentioned 

 was preparing the final overthrow of the scholastic philosophy by 

 showing men how to study nature, instead of attending to a mere jar- 

 gon of words, and eternally wrangling over abstractions called quiddity, 

 individuality , formality , infinity, etc., etc. It was indeed time to break 

 the protracted spell, and exorcise the delusive phantasms which had 

 so long beguiled the world by the semblance of scientific truth. 

 FRANCIS BACON was born in 1561. He entered as a student at 



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