Volume 1

Darwin and after Darwin : an exposition of the Darwinian theory and a discussion of post-Darwinian questions / by George John Romanes.

  • George John Romanes
Date:
1892-1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Darwin and after Darwin : an exposition of the Darwinian theory and a discussion of post-Darwinian questions / by George John Romanes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/512 page 2
    certain point, it is notorious that the revolt against the purely “subjective methods ” in the sixteenth century revived the spirit of inductive research as this had been left by the Greeks ; but even with regard to this revolt there are two things which I should like to observe. In the first place, it seems to me, an altogether disproportionate value has been assigned to Bacon’s share in the movement. At most, I think, he.deserves to be regarded but as a literary exponent of the Zeit geist of his century. Himself a philosopher, as dis tinguished from a man of science, whatever influence his preaching may have had upon the general public, it seems little short of absurd to suppose that it could have produced any considerable effect upon men who were engaged in the practical work of research. And those who read the Novum Organon with a first-hand knowledge of what is required for such research can scarcely fail to agree with his great contemporary Harvey, that he wrote upon science like a Lord Chancellor. The second thing I should like to observe is, that as the revolt against the purely subjective methods grew in extent and influence it passed to the opposite extreme, which eventually became only less deleterious to the interests of science than was the bondage of authority, and addiction to a priori methods, from which the revolt had set her free. For, without here waiting to trace the history of this matter in detail, I think it ought now to be manifest to everyone who studies it, that up to the commencement of the present century the progress of science in general, and of natural history in particular, was seriously retarded by
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3