86 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



those methods of research and directions of enquiry 

 which made the discoveries possible. Among these 

 a prominent name is that of Francis Bacon, whose 

 system of philosophy, known as the Inductive, pro- 

 ceeds from the collection, examination and comparison 

 of any group of connected facts to the relation of 

 them to some general principle. The universal is 

 thus explained by the particular. But the inductive 

 method was no invention of Bacon's ; wherever 

 observation or testing of a thing preceded specu- 

 lation about it, as with his greater namesake, there 

 the Baconian system had its application. Francis 

 Bacon, moreover, undervalued Greek science ; he 

 argued against the Copernican theory ; and either 

 knew nothing of, or ignored, Harvey's momentous 

 discovery of the circulation of the blood. A more 

 illustrious name than his is that of Ren Descartes, 

 a man who combined theory with observation ; ' one 

 who,' in Huxley's words, * saw that the discoveries 

 of Galileo meant that the remotest parts of the 

 universe were governed by mechanical laws, while 

 those of Harvey meant that the same laws presided 

 over the operations of that portion of the world 

 which is nearest to us, namely, our own bodily frame/ 

 The greatness of this man, a good Catholic, whom the 

 Jesuits charged with Atheism, has no mean tribute 

 in his influence on a still more remarkable man, 

 Benedict Spinoza. Spinoza reduced the Cartesian 

 analysis of phenomena into God, mind and matter 

 to one phenomenon, namely, God, of whom matter 

 and spirit, extension and thought, are but attributes. 

 His short life fell within the longer span of Newton's, 

 whose strange subjection to the theological influences 



