Bacon showed an uncompromising commitment to experimentation. Despite this, he did not make any great scientific discoveries during his lifetime. This may be because he was not the most able experimenter. It may also be because hypothesising plays only a small role in Bacon's method compared to modern science. Hypotheses, in Bacon's method, are supposed to emerge during the process of investigation, with the help of mathematics and logic. Bacon gave a substantial but secondary role to mathematics ""which ought only to give definiteness to natural philosophy, not to generate or give it birth"" ("Novum Organum XCVI"). An over-emphasis on axiomatic reasoning had rendered previous non-empirical philosophy impotent, in Bacon's view, which was expressed in his "Novum Organum":