Note 125 — Chapter XIII · THE RISE OF MODERN FREETHOUGHT—(Continued)

The fact of this influence has been somewhat obscured by the modern dispute as to whether he had any important influence on scientific progress.125 At first sight the old claim for him in that regard seems to be heavily discounted by the simple fact that he definitely rejected the Copernican system of astronomy.126 Though, however, this gravely emphasizes his fallibility, it does not cancel his services as a stimulator of scientific thought. At that time only a few were yet intelligently convinced Copernicans; and we have the record of how, in Bacon’s day, Harvey lost heavily in credit and in his medical practice by propounding his discovery of the circulation of the blood,127 which, it is said, no physician over forty years old at that time believed in. For the scientific men of that century—and only among them did Copernicanism find the slightest acceptance—it was thus no fatal shortcoming in Bacon to have failed to grasp the true scheme of sidereal motion, any more than it was in Galileo to be wrong about the tides and comets. They could realize that it was precisely in astronomy, for lack of special study and expert knowledge, that Bacon was least qualified to judge. Intellectual influence on science is not necessarily dependent on actual scientific achievement, though that of course furthers and establishes it; and the fact of Bacon’s impact on the mind of the next age is abundantly proved by testimonies.