122 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



accumulation of facts whereby to test them. Rightly 

 therefore, in Bacon's eyes, facts observed, authenti- 

 cated facts were the crying need of his age. 



Although Francis Bacon himself made no contribu- 

 tions to natural knowledge, and although his treatment 

 of method was over-ambitious in range and incapable 

 of general application in practice, he was nevertheless 

 a foremost figure in the early advance of modern 

 science. In terms of conscious power and states- 

 manlike eloquence, he expressed ideas that were 

 floating inarticulately in the society around him. 

 The authority of theology in the realm of natural 

 philosophy had been set on one side, at any rate in 

 England. The doctrines of the schoolmen had been 

 both outgrown and worn out. The world of thought 

 was astir, and time was ripe for a change. Bacon 

 gathered up the scattered threads, set the ship of 

 progress firmly on what was roughly the right track, 

 sped it on its way and gave to it its sailing directions 

 in the Novum Organum. 



Some of the work that was accomplished by Francis 



Bacon in England, was carried out somewhat earlier in 



Th France, but in a very different way, by 



Renaissance Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne (1533- 



in France. ^92) was bom m the f am il y chateau, not 



far from Bordeaux, in a district where much Northern 

 blood had been left behind after the English occupa- 

 tion ; and, like his father, served in the army and in 

 the local parliament. Living at a time when the French 

 Renaissance was at its height, when, indeed, the tide 

 was beginning to turn, Montaigne's essays fore- 

 shadow the coming period of disenchantment and give 



