It was he who coined the expression "scientia experimentalis," and
framed the principle that all research must be based on the study of
nature. He maintained that experience was the "mistress of all
sciences," and said: "I respect Aristotle and account him the prince of
philosophers, but I do not always share his opinion. Aristotle and the
other philosophers have planted the tree of science, but the latter has
not by any means put forth all its branches or matured all its fruit."
This thought, though it seems to us self-evident, was of great moment in
the age of scholasticism. Bacon spent ten years in prison; but in spite
of everything, he was so much under the influence of scholasticism that
he considered it the task of philosophy to adduce evidence for the truth
of the Christian dogma.
Here it is essential roughly to sketch the essence of the philosophical
thought of that period, and point out the way which led from the
Christianity of the Fathers of the Church and scholasticism to the
religion of unhistorical Christianity, the so-called mysticism.
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