Bacon’s Philosophy of Discovery

My solution to the riddle of Bacon in no way contradicts the ones already mentioned. It is true that there was (and still is, especially in some secret societies) an imposing Bacon myth. It is true that his propaganda and utopianism helped him achieve his influential position. This is no explanation, however, of the respect that such giants as Boyle, Faraday and Herschel¹ had for him. They quoted his Novum Oragnum and recommended it to young researchers: they sincerely viewed themselves as followers of Bacon in some sense or another, and they could not possibly overlook his methodology. His stress on method was new: his methodology is the centre of his view of science, and his influence is much due to this. Unlike other philosophies, his is the view of science as a process, that of an assured continuous discovery (“in streams” and “in buckets and vessels”); it is ever progressive. This is a utopian view of science. Also, Bacon’s philosophy was utopian in its suggestion that the progress of science will bring progress in general. This utopianism played a significant role in the rise of modern science, as it was a great contribution to the rise of the ethos and structure of the scientific fraternity.