The scientific method is a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
Like Bacon, the French philosopher René Descartes believed that a new science would lead to knowledge and inventions that would promote human welfare. Unlike Bacon, Descartes was a gifted mathematician, honored as the inventor of analytic geometry, and the advocate of a deductive, mathematical approach to the sciences.
