CH. xiii. FRANCIS BACON. ' NOVUM ORGANUM.' 101 



CHAPTER XIII. 



SCIENCE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (CONTINUED). 



Francis Bacon, his 'Novum Organum' Descartes Willebrord Snellius 

 discovers the Law of Refraction. 



Bacon's Influence upon Science. Although this book 

 is a history of scientific discovery and not of philosophy, 

 yet we must now mention in passing two philosophers who 

 lived about this time, and whose writings had great influence 

 upon science. These were Francis Bacon in England, and 

 Rene Descartes in France. 



Francis Bacon, commonly known as Lord Bacon, was 

 born in London in 1561, and died in 1626. He was made 

 Lord Chancellor of England in 1618, in the reign of James 

 I., with the title of Lord Verulam and afterwards Viscount 

 St. Alban's, and was a great political character. Bacon 

 devoted much of his time to science, and, like his namesake 

 Roger Bacon in the fifteenth century, he seems to have fore- 

 seen many of the discoveries which were afterwards made. 

 But his most useful work was a book called the l Novum 

 Organum,' or 'New Method,' published in 1620, in which 

 he sketched out very fully how science ought to be studied. 

 He insisted that no knowledge can be real but that which 

 is founded on experience, and that the only true way to 

 cultivate science is to be quite certain of each step before 

 going on farther, nor to be satisfied with any general law 



