Harper's New Monthly Magazine Volume 109 June to November 1904 . on the close observation ofobjects — alone could be laid the firmfoundations of a pure natural facts of the world were to be col-lected, and laws evolved from a multitudeof instances. The Baconian injunctionhad been to take all that comes rather 98 HARPERS MONTHLY MAGAZINE. than to choose, and to heap rather thanto register. Bacon had started the greatidea, but he had not carried it out. Heis not the founder, he is only the prophet,of modern physical science. To be indirect touch with nature, to adventure inthe une
Harper's New Monthly Magazine Volume 109 June to November 1904 . on the close observation ofobjects — alone could be laid the firmfoundations of a pure natural facts of the world were to be col-lected, and laws evolved from a multitudeof instances. The Baconian injunctionhad been to take all that comes rather 98 HARPERS MONTHLY MAGAZINE. than to choose, and to heap rather thanto register. Bacon had started the greatidea, but he had not carried it out. Heis not the founder, he is only the prophet,of modern physical science. To be indirect touch with nature, to adventure inthe unexplored kingdom of knowledge,and to do this by carrying out an endlesscourse of slow and sure experiments, thiswas the counsel of the Novum this sense that book started the wholeenterprise; in another sense, the serious,patient, somewhat scornful Harvey, whodid what Bacon merely talked about, wasthe father of English science. But inreality it was neither the eloquence ofthe one nor the energy of the other whichgave the final start-word. It was the. Portrait of the Hon. Robert BoyiFrom a painting by Frederick Kerseboom (1632- unselfish enthusiasm of a group of anat-omists, mathematicians, and chemistsMho met in a modest room in Londonin 1645, and who called themselves, orwere - called, the Invisible Philosophers. Erom their meetings directly sprang theRoyal Society, and the whole system ofscientific inquiry which has spread intosuch a mighty thing all over the English-speaking world. In taking into consideration the stateof European thought in the seventeenthcentury, the great activity of the chem-ists must not be overlooked. Their falseambitions waylaid the infant steps ofscience and perpetually tripped them is difficult for us to realize that in-vestigators who were otherwise whollysound and sensible were drawn away, asif by a lodestone, by the hope of attainingboundless wealth in transmutations andthe Great Elixir. We can hardly bepatient with men of genius
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