Part 4/14:
The turning point came with the Age of Discovery and the expansion of global exploration. Europeans began exploring and colonizing new continents, which led to an explosion in knowledge and the realization that the world was far more vast and complex than previously imagined. Thinkers like Francis Bacon championed the empirical method, emphasizing scientific inquiry, experimentation, and systematic discovery as pathways to unlock new knowledge and inventions.
Bacon argued that there was much more to discover beyond what ancient civilizations knew—about the Americas, gunpowder, the magnetic compass, and the printing press. His faith in scientific method and empirical research laid the intellectual foundation for believing that human progress could indeed continue and accelerate.