ted towards
the subtleties of philosophy, yet who had also a penchant for
strictly scientific imaginings, if not indeed for practical scientific
experiments. At least three of these men were of sufficient importance
in the history of the development of science to demand more than passing
notice. These three are the Englishman Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the
Frenchman Rene Descartes (1596-1650); and the German Gottfried Leibnitz
(1646-1716). Bacon, as the earliest path-breaker, showed the way,
theoretically at least, in which the sciences should be studied;
Descartes, pursuing the methods pointed out by Bacon, carried the same
line of abstract reason into practice as well; while Leibnitz, coming
some years later, and having the advantage of the wisdom of his two
great predecessors, was naturally influenced by both in his views of
abstract scientific principles.

Bacon's career as a statesman and his faults and misfortunes as a man do
not concern us here. Our interest in him begins with his entrance
into Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took up the study of all the
sciences taught there at that time. During the three years he became
more and more convinced that science was not being studied in a
profitable manner, until at last, at the end of his college course, he
made ready to renounce the old Aristotelian methods of study and advance
his theory of inductive study. For although he was a great admirer of
Aristotle's work, he became convinced that his methods of approaching
study were entirely wrong.

"The opinion of Aristotle," he says, in his De Argumentum Scientiarum,
"seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that of those things which exist by
nature nothing can be changed by custom; using for example, that if a
stone be thrown ten thousand times up it will not learn to ascend; and
that by often seeing or hearing we do not learn to see or hear better.
For though this principle be true in things wherein nature is peremptory
(the reason whereof we cannot now stand to discuss), yet it is otherwise
in things wherein nature admitteth a latitude. For he might see that a
straight glove will come more easily on with use; and that a wand will
by use bend otherwise than it grew; and that by use of the voice we
speak louder and stronger; and that by use of enduring heat or cold
we endure it the better, and the like; which latter sort have a
nearer resemblance unto that subject of manners he handleth than those
instances which he