Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/639

 Europe of To-day 60 1 A very little advance in the power of thinking clearly on the force which it exerted in pulling, would have enabled the Romans to see that the ship and its rowers must pull the adhering fish by the hold of the oars upon the water; and that, except the fish had a hold equally strong on some external body, it could not resist this force. 1 While Roger Bacon had, in the thirteenth century, forecast the methods of modern science, it remained for Francis Bacon, some three centuries later, clearly to enunciate its principles in his famous Novum Organum, which he dedicated to James I. In it he harshly criti- cises the mediaeval attitude toward natural science. The discoveries which have hitherto been made in the sciences are such as lie close to vulgar notions, scarcely be- neath the surface. In order to penetrate into the inner and further recesses of nature, it is necessary that both notions 1 Lactantius, a Christian writer of Constantine's time, like Pliny much read in the Middle Ages, well illustrates the confusion of thought of which Whewell speaks. He is discussing the idea advanced by the philosophers that there may be men living on the opposite side of the globe. " How can there be any one so absurd as to think that men can have their feet higher than their heads ; or that in those parts of the earth instead of resting on the ground things hang down ; crops and trees grow downward ; rain, snow, and hail fall upward on to the earth ? Who indeed can wonder at the hanging gardens which are reckoned as one of the seven wonders when the philosophers would have us believe in hanging fields and cities, seas and mountains? . . . " If you ask those who maintain these monstrous notions why every- thing does not fall off into the heavens on that side, they reply that it is of the nature of things that all objects having weight are borne toward the center, and that everything is connected with the center, like the spokes of a wheel ; while light things, like clouds, smoke, and fire, are borne away from the center and seek the heavens. I scarce know what to say of such fellows, who when once they have wandered from truth persevere in their foolishness and defend their absurdities by new ab- surdities. Sometimes I imagine that their philosophizing is all a joke, or that they know the truth well enough and only defend these lies in a perverse attempt to exhibit and exercise their wit." — Divinae Institu- tiones, Lib. iii, sect. 24, Corp. Scrip. Eccl. Lat., XIX, pp. 254^. 494. Francis Bacon pro- claims the principles of modern scientific progress.