Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (1620) is the founding manifesto of experimental science: the idols of the mind that corrupt understanding, the case against sterile deduction, and the new instrument — patient induction from observation and experiment — by which nature was to be ‘interpreted’ rather than anticipated.
The Royal Society took it for a charter, and modern science still runs substantially on Bacon’s programme. Download the free EPUB and read the book that taught knowledge to be humble before facts — and mighty because of it.