60 T.HE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 



with truth, says that "the appearance of a Leonardo or a 

 Galileo* is only comprehensible when taken in connexion 

 with Italian industry." But industrial pursuits, I suggest, 

 can never do more than supply the experience which forms the 

 starting point for the scientific process which follows only from 

 a specific attitude towards that experience which I have tried 

 already to characterise. Just as J. A. Symonds has shown us 

 that in the epoch of the Crusades and dominant Scholasticism 

 the Latin songs of the Wandering Students "gave clear and 

 ai-tistic utterance " to a " bold, fresh, natural, and pagan view 

 of human life " ; so, doubtless, ever and anon men of intellect 

 turned aside from the theologico-philosophical studies of their 

 day to the task of rendering intelligible Objective facts in 

 which they took an immediate interest and delight. Such a 

 one, in part, was Eoger Bacon, such a one was his master, 

 Peter of Maricourt,f such a one pre-eminently was Leonardo 

 da Vinci who, though his discoveries do not appear actually to 

 have affected the course of Science, left among his remarkable 

 manuscripts a presentment of the scientific attitude which can 

 hardly be improved. I conclude this section by quoting a 

 typical expression of his opinion :| " In dealing with a scientific 

 problem I first arrange several experiments, since my purpose 

 is ^to determine the problem in accordance with experience 

 and then to show why the bodies are compelled so to act. 

 That is the method which must be followed in all researches 

 upon the phenomena of Xature. It is true that Nature as it 



* Cf. the opening words of Galileo's own Dialogues : " The constant 

 employments in your famous arsenal of Venice, and especially those 

 relating to what we call Mechanics, seem to me to afford, to a speculative 

 genius, a large field to philosophise in." (Tr. Weston.) 



t To whom Gilbert of Colchester was much indebted See in Bridges' 

 edition of Bacon's Opus Majus, 1897-1900, vol. i, p. xxv. 



J From Grothe, Leonardo da Vinci also Ingenieur und Philosophy 

 Berlin, 1874, p. 22. Cf. the following passage : " Le me pare che quelle 

 scienze sieno vane e piene di errori, le quali non sono nati dall' experienza r 

 madre di ogni certezza, e chi non terminano in nota experienza." 

 Frammenti litterari e filosophici, p. 94. 



