the romantics, in seeking to understand nature in her living essence, studied the 'father of science', sir francis bacon. the view of bacon and the 'inductive method' that emerges is quite a different one from that that tended to prevail both before and then after, here mainly due to john stuart mill's interpretation later in the 1800s. for the romantics, induction as generally interpreted 'was not enough to produce correct understanding in bacon's terms.' they saw another side of bacon, generally not developed, one in which nature was a labyrinth not open to "excellence of wit" nor "chance experiments": "our steps must be guided by a clue, and see what way from the first perception of the sense must be laid out upon a sure plan."