388 A Century of Science 



which modern discoveries in physical science have 

 been made. Early in the present century, such 

 writers on the history of science as Whewell began 

 to show the incorrectness of this notion, and it was 

 completely exploded by Stanley Jevons in his 

 " Principles of Science," the most profound treatise 

 on method that has appeared in the last fifty years. 

 Jevons writes : " It is wholly a mistake to say that 

 modern science is the result of the Baconian phi- 

 losophy ; it is the Newtonian philosophy and the 

 Newtonian method which have led to all the great 

 triumphs of physical science, and . . . the * Prin- 

 cipia' forms the true Novum Organon." This 

 statement of Jevons is thoroughly sound. The 

 great Harvey, who knew how scientific discoveries 

 are made, said with gentle sarcasm that Bacon 

 "wrote philosophy like a lord chancellor;" yet 

 Harvey would not have denied that the chancellor 

 was doing noble service as the eloquent expounder 

 of many sides of the scientific movement that was 

 then gathering strength. Bacon's mind was emi- 

 nently sagacious and fertile in suggestions, but 

 the supreme creative faculty, the power to lead 

 men into new paths, was precisely the thing which 

 he did not possess. His place is a very high one 

 among intellects of the second order ; but to rank 

 him with such godlike spirits as Newton, Spinoza, 



