ce has been built up on the basis of the inquiry into
nature's processes. It is all the time inquiring: "What do we find
under the microscope, through the telescope, in the chemical and
physical reactions, in the examination of the earth and its products,
in the observation of the functions of animals and plants, or in the
structure of the brain of man and the laws of his mental functioning?"
If it establishes an hypothesis as a means of procedure, it must be
determined true or abandoned. If the imagination ventures to be
far-seeing, observation, experimentation, and the discovery of fact
must all come to its support before it can be called scientific.

_Scientific Methods_.--We have already referred to the turning of the
minds of the Greeks from the power of the gods to {459} a look into
nature's processes. We have seen how they lacked a scientific method
and also scientific data sufficient to verify their assumptions. We
have observed how, while they took a great step forward, their
conclusions were lost in the Dark Ages and in the early mediaeval
period, and how they were brought to light in the later medieval period
and helped to form the scholastic philosophy and to stimulate free
inquiry, and how the weakness of all systems was manifested in all
these periods of human life by failure to use the simple process of
observing the facts of nature, getting them and classifying them so as
to demonstrate truth. It will not be possible to recount in this
chapter a full description of the development of science and scientific
thought. Not more can be done than to mention the turning-points in
its development and expansion.

Though other influences of minor importance might be mentioned, it is
well to note that Roger Bacon (1214-1294) stands out prominently as the
first philosopher of the mediaeval period who turned his attitude of
mind earnestly toward nature. It is true that he was not free from the
taint of dogmatic theology and scholastic philosophy which were so
strongly prevailing at the time, but he advocated the discovery of
truth by observation and experiment, which was a bold assumption at
that time. He established as one of his main principles that
experimental science "investigates the secrets of nature by its own
competency and out of its own qualities, irrespective of any connection
with the other sciences." Thus he did not universalize his method as
applicable to all sciences.

Doubtless Roger Baco