SCIENCE AND THE THOUGHT OF THE WORLD 



assigns no proper place to the use of the trained imagina- 

 tion in scientific experiment, though, indeed, he speaks of 

 the procedure from one experiment to another as an art, 

 or a learned sagacity. Further, there is in his system 

 no sufficient appreciation of the deductive method of 

 reasoning. 



On these grounds questionings have made themselves 

 heard, and in some quarters rather loudly, whether Francis 

 Bacon has a right to the high position usually accorded to 

 him in the history of experimental science. We shall 

 probably not go far wrong if we allow ourselves to be 

 guided by the views of Bacon taken by his immediate 

 intellectual successors, the great men, Boyle, Evelyn, and 

 others, who had the chief part in founding the Royal 

 Society. We find them reflected in the Ode to the Royal 

 Society, composed, at the instance of Evelyn, by the con- 

 temporary poet Cowley. He likens Bacon to a modern 

 Moses, who led the chosen people to the promised land of 

 knowledge of Nature, though he himself did not enter, and 

 only viewed it imperfectly from afar. The fine engraving 

 by Hollar which forms the frontispiece to the large paper 

 edition of Spratt's History of the Royal Society, published in 

 1667, the design of which was furnished by Evelyn, con- 

 tains two principal figures : the first President of the Society, 

 Lord Brouncker, is on one side of the bust of the Royal 

 Founder, and on the other is Bacon with the title of Artium 

 Instaurator. 



[Surely no one of the founders of the Society would have 



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