At least three of these men were of sufficient importance in the history of the development of science to demand more than passing notice.

These three are the Englishman Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the Frenchman Rene Descartes (1596-1650); and the German Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716).

Bacon, as the earliest path-breaker, showed the way, theoretically at least, in which the sciences should be studied; Descartes, pursuing the methods pointed out by Bacon, carried the same line of abstract reason into practice as well; while Leibnitz, coming some years later, and having the advantage of the wisdom of his two great predecessors, was naturally influenced by both in his views of abstract scientific principles.
Bacon's career as a statesman and his faults and misfortunes as a man do not concern us here.

Our interest in him begins with his entrance into Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took up the study of all the sciences taught there at that time.

During the three years he became more and more convinced that science was not being studied in a profitable manner, until at last, at the end of his college course, he made ready to renounce the old Aristotelian methods of study and advance his theory of inductive study.