Abstract
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) is a puzzling figure for historians of philosophy and of the natural sciences. We all know that he was an important and influential figure, whose works were widely read not just in the UK but also across Continental Europe. But what exactly was Bacon's role in the so-called scientific revolution of the 17th century? His admirers have claimed that Bacon set out the first conception of scientific method, firmly based on experimental evidence and inductive reasoning. His detractors have replied that the account of induction in Novum Organum (1620) is full of holes, and that Bacon provides no credible method of reasoning from his tables of instances to the “forms” of, for example, heat or whiteness.
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