Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
The Christs of this new covenant are the three founders of modern sci-
ence, Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes. Bacon had “revealed the true method
of studying nature and of using the three instruments that she has given
us for penetrating her secrets; observation, experience and calculation.” In
doing so he also launched history's rebirth. Now that the path to knowl-
edge had been made plain, the philosopher was obliged to renounce all
the “beliefs that he had received and even all notions he had formed,” to
make way for “a new understanding admitting only of precise ideas, accu-
rate notions and truths whose degree of certainty or probability had been
strictly weighed.” Galileo likewise showed “by example how to arrive at a
knowledge of the laws of nature by a sure and fruitful method,” when he
“founded the first school in which the sciences were studied without any
admixture of superstition in favour of either popular prejudices or author-
ity, and where all methods other than experiment and calculation were
rejected with philosophical severity.” But the most significant revelation
came not from Bacon, who “possessed the genius of philosophy in the high-
est degree” but “without the genius of science,” nor from Galileo, who by
“limiting himself exclusively to the mathematical and physical sciences . . .
could not afford mankind that general guidance of which it seemed to stand
in need.”
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The full incarnation of reason would have to be fully universal,
and thus it is found in the thoroughgoing scientism of France's own Des-
cartes. Even though his “philosophy was less wise than Bacon's” and “his
progress in the physical sciences was less certain than Galileo's,” Descartes
stands above them because he extended “his method to all the subjects of
human thought; God, man and the universe were in turn the objects of his
meditations.” With this full recognition of reason's unlimited scope and
power, he “stimulated men's minds” and spoke as a prophet, commanding
all to “shake off the yoke of authority, to recognize none save that which was
avowed by reason; and he was obeyed, because he won men by his boldness
and led them by his enthusiasm.”
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This great apocalypse, by making known the sure method and unlim-
ited scope of science, also brought to conscious awareness the principles
upon which the course of human history had been unfolding since the
beginning of time. This meant that one could now compose “the picture of
its progress” simply by reading the “uninterrupted chain of facts and obser-
vations” left since the invention of alphabetical writing. As we now reflect
upon our past as it has been recorded since the invention of writing,
