THE EVOLUTION IDEA 135 



wavered in advocating this principle, this was a 

 theme of the first rank; that is, the operation of 

 natural causes in the world rather than of the 

 constant interference of a Creator in his works. 

 In the doubts which were felt as to natural cau- 

 sation, we see proofs of the close relations be- 

 tween the Church, the State, and Science, and 

 that this principle, as well as that of Evolution, 

 was under the ban of unorthodoxy. 



Francis Bacon (1561-1626) 



Three centuries elapsed between Roger Bacon 

 (1214) and Francis Bacon (1561), the pro- 

 ponent of the inductive scientific method. 



Francis Bacon thought lightly of Greek sci- 

 ence and of Arabian philosophy. He strongly 

 condemned the reverence for them as a bar to 

 progress, and in his sweeping criticisms was far 

 too severe, as in the following passage*/ 



Nor must we omit the opinion, or rather proph- 

 ecy, of an Egyptian priest in regard to the Greeks, 

 that they would forever remain children, without any 

 antiquity of knowledge or knowledge of antiquity; 

 for they certainly have this in common with children, 

 that they are prone to talking, and incapable of gen- 

 eration, their wisdom being loquacious and unpro- 

 ductive of effects. Hence the external signs derived 



'^Novum Organum, Book I, Ixxi. 



