Caption: "Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, The New Atlantis, On the Wisdom of the Ancients, 'The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind' - Pope, printed by John Haviland, London, 1638. Francis Bacon presents a paradox. He is celebrated by many as the earliest thinker to grasp the implication of the scientific method. Bacon nevertheless rejected the most celebrated scientific discoveries of his own time and opposed the Copernican system with particular severity. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, remarked that Bacon wrote science more like a Lord Chancellor than a scientist. Bacon, however, persistently attacked scholasticism, for he wished to deliver the world from Aristotelianism, and did much with his persuasive writing to substitute for it the inductive method. The De Augmentis Scientiarum is an expansion of Bacon's earlier work, The Advancement of Learning, first published in 1605. It was part of a tremendous project, The Great Renewal, which was left far from complete. In the preface Bacon wrote, ‘I have propounded my opinion, naked and unarmed, not seeking preoccupate the liberty of men’s judgment by confutations.’ The New Atlantis, written in 1627, is a scientific Utopia; the central establishment was the so-called House of Solomon, the laboratory of co-operating scientists honored above all other men. In Wisdom of the Ancients, he tries to explain ancient fables by ingenious allegories. Bacon polished all his prose sentences until they reached a ‘shining beauty that was almost poetic.’ His purpose was ‘teaching men to think more wisely’ and his motto was, ‘Discriminate.’ This work was printed by John Haviland. The title page was composed in Latin to conform with the text. Restrictions on book printing were so stringent at this time that the period has been called the darkest in the history of English Printing.”
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