IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 13 



tician, and it would seem that the bent of 

 his mind led him to overestimate the value 

 of deductive reasoning from general prin- 

 ciples, as much as Bacon had underesti- 

 mated it. The progress of physical science 

 has been effected neither by Baconians 

 nor by Cartesians, as such, but by men 

 like Galileo and Harvey, Boyle and New- 

 ton, who would have done their work just 

 as well if neither Bacon nor Descartes had 

 ever propounded their views respecting 

 the manner in which scientific investiga- 

 tion should be pursued. 



The progress of science, during the For a 



10 -, time the 



first century after Bacon's death, by no progress 



.„ n , . . -,. ,. j. without 



means verified his sanguine prediction 01 « fruits.' 

 the fruits which it would yield. For, 

 though the revived and renewed study of 

 nature had spread and grown to an extent 

 which surpassed reasonable expectation, 

 the practical results — the 'good to men's 

 estate' — were, at first, by no means ap- 

 parent. Sixty years after Bacon's death, 



