The Birth of the Scientific Method: FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE: FRANCIS BACON’S DEFENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, laying the foundation of the inductive model. A MOST DESIREABLE COPY.

Bacon’s Novum Organon, his manifesto for a new philosophy of scientific method, relies on laws derived from observation and investigation, “the evidence of the senses” (Ayn Rand). "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." Bacon originally conceived his revolutionary work in six parts, of which only the first and second parts, the De augmentiis scientiarum (1623, a greatly expanded version of the Advancement of learning) and the Novum organum were completed. Bacon's aim was to lay an entirely new foundation for science, "neither leaping to unproved general principles in the manner of the ancient philosophers nor heaping up unrelated facts in the manner of the 'empirics'" (DSBI).

“The writings of Lord Bacon, and especially the “Novum Organum,” possess a fourfold interest: They have a direct bearing upon the history of philosophy, literature, logic, and physical science; and whatever estimate we may form of their influence upon each of these branches of knowledge, we think that few will fail to admit that Bacon threw a bridge over that vast and deep gulf which separates the ancient from the modern modes of thought, and directly opened a way to our present philosophy and science” (G.F. Rodwell, Bacon’s Novum Organum).

Bacon “insisted on experiment in determining truth in nature and the Novum is a proposed method for the assessment of all knowledge. The accumulation of observation and fact must be the basis of a new philosophy and not the authority of Aristotle or anyone else... Bacon’s inspiration led directly to the formation of the Royal Society” (Dibner 80), the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The Novum’s famous allegorical title page—with its evocative engraving of a ship in full sail passing through the Pillars of Hercules—refers to the work as the Instauratio Magna. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society were soon to be filled with exactly the kind of "Histories," careful collections of experimental data, that Bacon here recommends. 

As usual, this copy is the second state, with leaf e3 canceled and reprinted on e4, errata added, and only printer John Bill present. Ownership inscription at head of title; 18th-century manuscript notes on both sides of initial blank; scarce underlining and marginal marks in the preface. From the library of the Irish classical scholar John Walker (17691833), with his ownership inscription at the head of the engraved title "John Walker, T.C.D." (retrospectively dated 1815), and with his manuscript notes in Latin about the book on both sides of the initial blank leaf. Walker entered Trinity College, Dublin, in January 1786, ascending by stages to Bachelor of Divinity in 1800. Inspired by the practice of the apostles and rejecting all later developments in church authority, Walker founded a group called the Church of God, known pejoratively as Separatists or Walkerites, and Walker was expelled from his fellowship at Trinity. He supported himself by lecturing and writing until the last year of his life, when Trinity College, Dublin, granted him a pension in amends for its earlier treatment of him.

Very infrequent scattered light foxing, with occasional marginal pinpoint wormholing, not affecting readability. Age-wear to contemporary calf boards, with a few cuts, wormholes on rear board. A desirable copy in extremely good condition of this landmark.