analogy of knowledge, and the truth from the section of an idol. The former is constant and indefinitely germinous, the latter discordant and solitary. Which happens also in works. Gunpowder, if it had been invented by conduct, not chance (as they speak) and accident, would not have come forth solitary, but with great frequence of noble inventions, (which fall under the same meridian.) So also the rest, both works and principles. Wherefore I admonish thee, if perhaps any idol of any of these hath in any point determined my truth, that is, the truth of things, not to think more highly of them, or less of me, since it is sufficiently apparent from their ignorance of the rest, that those things themselves they have not said from the analogy of knowledge. But thou still urgest, my son: would you, therefore, order all their writings to be converted into wrappings for incense and perfumes? That I should not have said. For there remains yet a short while some use of them, slight and narrow, and far different from that which they were destined for, and now usurp, but still some. Add to this that there are many other writings obscurer in fame, but more excellent in use. The morals of Aristotle and of Plato many admire; yet Tacitus breathes more living observations of manners. But at length in the proper place I shall say, what utility can be derived from writings, and which are superior in utility to the rest, and which smallest part of them are gifts of those things which contribute to the interpretation of nature. Lastly, my son, I hear thee inquiring: dost thou suffice thyself in place of all these? I shall reply, and that not dissemblingly, but from my inmost sense. I, dearest son, will confirm to thee a sacred, chaste, and legitimate marriage with things themselves. From which intercourse (above all wishes of marriage songs) thou shalt beget a most blessed progeny of heroes, who shall subdue the infinite necessities of man, more fatal than all giants, and monsters, and tyrants; and for your affairs procure a placid and festal security and plenteousness. But were I, my son, to commit! thee to the giddy intricacies of experience with a mind unpurged of idols, verily thou wouldst soon desire a leader. Yet by my simple precepts, without the knowledge of things, thou canst not, however much thou mayest wish it, divest thyself of idols. In tables, unless you erase what has before been written, you can write nothing else. But in the mind, on the contrary, unless you inscribe something else, you cannot erase what has before been written. And although this may be done, although thou mayest put off the idols of friendship, yet indeed, being uninitiated, there is danger that thou mayest be overwhelmed by the idols of the way. Thou hast too much accustomed thyself to a leader. At Rome, tyranny being once established, the oath in the name of the Roman senate and people was ever afterwards vain. Confide and give thyself to me, my son, that I may restore thee to thyself. OF THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. ACCOUNTING myself born for the use of mankind, and judging the case of the commonweal to be one of those things which are of public right, and like water or air lie open to all; I sought what might be of most advantage to men, and deliberated what I was most fitted for by nature. I discovered that nothing is of such estimation towards the human race, as the invention and earnest of new things and arts, by which man's life is adorned. For I perceive that, even in old times among rude men, the inventors and teachers of things rude were consecrated and chosen into the number of the gods; and I noted that the deeds of heroes who built cities, or were legislators, or exercised just authority, or subdued unjust dominations, were circumscribed by the narrowness of places and times. But the invention of things, though it be a matter of less pomp, I esteemed more adapted for universality and eternity. Yet above all, if any bring forth no particular invention, though of much utility, but kindleth a light in nature, which from the very beginning illuminates the regions of things, which lie contiguous to things already invented, afterwards being elevated lays open and brings to view all the abstrusest things; he seems to me a propagator of the empire of man over the universe, a defender of liberty, a conqueror of necessities. But I found myself constructed more for the contemplations of truth than for aught else, as having a mind sufficiently mobile for recognising (what is most of all) the similitude of things, and sufficiently fixed and intent for observing the subtleties of differences, and possessing love of investigation, patience in doubting, pleasure in meditating, delay in asserting, facility in returning to wisdom, and neither affecting novelty, nor admiring antiquity, and hating all imposture. Wherefore I judged my nature to have a kind of familiarity and relationship with truth. Yet seeing by rank and education I was trained to civil affairs, and, like a youth, sometimes staggered in my opinions, and conceived I owed my country something peculiar, and not equally pertaining to all other parts, and hoped, if I obtained any honourable degree in the commonwealth to perform with greater help of ingenuity and industry what I had intended; I both learned civil arts, and with all ingenuousness and due modesty, commended myself to my friends who had some power. And in addition to this, because those things of whatever kind penetrate not beyond the condition and culture of this life, the hope occurred that I, born in no very prosperous state of religion, might, if called to civil offices, contribute somewhat to the safety of souls. But when my zeal was imputed to ambition, and my age was matured, and my disordered health also admonished me of my unhappy slowness, and I next considered that I nowise fulfilled my duty, while I was neglecting that by which I could through myself benefit men, and applying myself to the things which depended upon the will of another, I altogether weaned myself from those thoughts, and wholly betook myself to this work, according to my former principle. Nor is my resolution diminished, by foreseeing in the state of these times, a sort of declination and ruin of the learning which is now in use; for although I dread not the incursions of barbarians, (unless, perhaps, the empire of Spain should strengthen itself, and oppress and debilitate others by arms, itself by the burden,) yet from civil wars (which, on account of certain manners not long ago introduced, seem to me about to visit many countries) and the malignity of sects, and from those compendiary artifices and cautions which have crept into the place of learning, no less a tempest seems to impend over letters and science. Nor can the shop of the typographer suffice for those evils. And that unwarlike learning, which is nourished by ease, and flourishes by praise and reward, which sustains not the vehemency of opinion, and is the sport of artifices and impostures, is overcome by the impediments which I have mentioned. Far different is the nature of the knowledge whose dignity is fortified by utility and operation. And from the injuries of time I am almost secure; but for the injuries of men I am not concerned. For should any say that I savour things too high, I reply simply, in civil affairs there is place for modesty, in contemplations for truth. But if any one require works immediately, I say, without any imposture, that I, a man not old, frail in health, involved in civil studies, coming to the obscurest of all subjects without guide or light, have done enough, if I have constructed the machine itself and the fabric, though I may not have employed or moved it. And with the same candour, I profess that the legitimate interpretation of nature, in the first ascent before arriving at a certain degree of generals, should be kept pure and separate from all application to works. Moreover, I know that all those who have in some measure committed themselves to the waters of experience, seeing they were infirm of purpose, or desirous of ostentation, have at the entrance unreasonably sought pledges of works, and have thence been confounded and shipwrecked. But if any requires at least particular promises, let him know that by that knowledge, which is now in use, men are not skilled enough even for wishing. But, what is of less moment, should any of the politicians, whose custom it is from per-· sonal calculations to estimate every thing, or from examples of like endeavours to form conjecture, presume to interpose his judgment in a matter of this sort, I would have told that ancient saying, "claudus in via, cursorem extra viam antevertit," and not to think about examples, since the matter is without example. But the method of publishing these things is, to have such of them as tend to seize the correspondences of dispositions, and purge the areas of minds, given out to the vulgar and talked of; to have the rest handed down with selection and judgment. Nor am I ignorant that it is a common and trite artifice of impostors to keep apart from the vulgar certain things which are nothing better than the impertinences they set forth to the vulgar. But without any imposture, from sound providence, I foresee that this formula of interpretation, and the inventions made by it, will be more vigorous and secure when contained within legitimate and chosen devices. Yet I undertake these things at the risk of others. For none of those things which depend upon externals concerns me: nor do I hunt after fame, or, like the heretics, take delight in establishing a sect; and to receive any private emolument from so great an undertaking, I hold to be both ridiculous and base. Sufficient for me is the consciousness of desert, and the very accomplishment itself of things, which even fortune cannot withstand. J. A. C. TRUE HINTS ON THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.* Outline and Argument of the Second Part of the facts and particular experiments to generic veri Instauration. KEEPING then in view our plan, we shall exhibit the whole subject perspicuously, and with orderly distribution of the parts. Wherefore, let us now unfold the design and arrangement of this second part. We devote this part to the doctrine of a better and more perfect use of reason than hath heretofore been known or promulgated to men, with purpose (as far as the terms of this mortal state permit) to aggrandize and enlarge the human intellect with power to conquer and interpret the mystery of nature. To the interpretation itself we have dedicated three books, the third, the fourth, and the fifth; for the sixth, which consists of anticipations drawn from the ordinary use of reason, it is to be taken only as temporary and provisional, and when in time it shall have begun to acquire solidity, and to be verified by the methods of legitimate reason, it is shifted, and, as it were, migrates of itself into the sixth. But to this second book is apportioned the intellect itself, its treatment and regulation, and the entire system of preparation and training leading to the right conduct of the understanding. And although the term logic or dialectics, by reason of the depravations of the art, sounds repulsive in our ears, yet to lead men as it were so far by the hand in their wonted tracts, we acknowledge the art which we profess to be of the nature of logic,—so far as logic (the common logic, I mean) supplies aids and constructs defences for the intellect. Yet ours differs from the received logic, besides other points of opposition, principally in three; namely, its mode of entering on inquiry, its order of demonstration, and its end and office. It goes deeper to find a foundation and basis for inquiry, by subjecting to investigation what the received logic admits as it were on the credit of others, and in a blind submission to authority, principles, primary notions, and the informations of the senses; and it reverses downright its order of demonstration, by making propositions and axioms, in an unbroken line, ascend and mount on a ladder of elevation, from recorded *The first part of this tract forms the preface to the Novum Organum, translated by Mr. Wood, vol. iii. p. 000, 000. ties, not by darting without a pause to principles and the higher generalizations, and from them deducing and inferring intermediate truths. Again, the end of this our scheme of science is, that things and works, not reasonings and speculative probabilities, may be invented and brought to the test. Such then is the scope of the second book. Let us now, in like manner, set forth its arrangement. As in the generation of light it is requisite that the body which is to receive the rays be made smooth and clean, and then planted in a position or conversion duly adapted to the illumination, before the light itself is introduced, even so we must proceed now. For, first the area of the mind must be levelled out and cleared of those things which have hitherto encumbered it; next, there must be a turning of the mind well and fittingly to the objects which are presented; lastly, information must be exhibited to the mind thus prepared for its reception. Now, the extirpating part is threefold, according to the three several classes of idols which beset the mind. For such idols are either adoptive, and that in two ways, having invaded and established themselves in the mind from the systems and sects of philosophy, or from an abuse of the laws and methods of demonstration; or, secondly, they are such as are inseparable from and indigenous in the essence of the mind. For as an uneven and ill-cut mirror distorts the true rays of things according to its own incurvation of surface; so, too, the mind, subjected to the impression of objects through the senses, in performing its operations, interchanges and mixes up its own nature with that of its objects, so as it may not be implicitly trusted. Wherefore the first task imposed upon us is to disperse utterly, and to expatriate all that army of theories which has figured in so many wellfought combats. To this we add a second, the emancipation of the mind from the slavery imposed on it by perverted laws of demonstration; which is followed by a third, namely, to master the seductive bias of the mind itself, and either to extirpate its native idols, or, if they cannot be rooted up, so to point them out and thoroughly comprehend them, that deviations may be recti fied. For it would be futile, and perhaps pernicious, merely to overturn and explode errors in philosophy, if from the incorrigible grain of the mind a new off-shoot of errors, perhaps even degenerated from their predecessors, should sprout; and not till all hope is precluded, of perfecting philosophy, or enlarging its empire by the exercise of ordinary reason, and by the helps and aids of the received logic, ought we to abandon and discard them; lest haply we do not thereby banish, but only change our errors. Wherefore that part of the book which we term the destroying, consists of a threefold argument of redargution or exposure; redargution of the philosophies; redargution of the demonstrations; and redargution of human reason in its natural course. And it does not escape us, that without so immense a revolution, no small accretion to science might result from our labours, and celebrity be attainable by a smoother path. Nevertheless, being uncertain when the same views may enter the mind of any other man, we have determined to make a full and free profession of our creed. of contemplative wisdom, as from a far diviner state-we shall show and establish, as we trust, forever, (not without putting to the blush the whole of that school which hesitates not to concede divine honours to fantastic reveries, utterly bereft of solidity,) the difference that prevails between the ideas of the divine and the idols of the human mind. Those also to whom, absorbed in the love of meditation, our frequent mention of works sounds harsh, uncouth, and mechanical, shall be instructed how much they war against the attainment of their own object of desire, since exact clearness of contemplation, and the invention of works, its under platform, depend upon and are brought to perfection by the same means. If any one should still hold out, conceiving of this absolute regeneration of science from its elements, as a thing interminable, vast, and infinite, we shall demonstrate that, on the contrary, it ought to be regarded as a true boundary and a circumscribing line, marking off the region of error and waste land; and we shall make it manifest, that a just and full inquisition of particulars, without attempting to embrace individuals, gradations, and vermiculate differences, (which is enough for the purposes of science;) and then notions and truths, raised from and upon the former, in just method, form something infinitely more defined, tangible, and intelligible, sure of itself, and clear both in what hath been done, and what remains to be accomplished, than floating systems and abstract subtleties, of which there is indeed no end, but a ceaseless gyration, whirl, and chaos. And though some sober censor, (as he may think himself,) applying to this subject that diffidence of consequences which becomes civil prudence, should consider what we now say to be like men's vain aspirations-an indulgence only of wild hope— and that in truth nothing else will follow from this remodelled state of philosophy, than that new doctrines, perhaps, are substituted, but the resources of mankind not at all augmented-such a one we shall, as we conceive, induce to admit, that we are doing any thing but founding a system or a sect, that our institution differs wholly and generically from all that have hitherto been attempted in philosophy and the sciences-and First, then, if any one think that the secrets of that there is the surest promise of a harvest of nature remain shut up, as it were, with the seal works, if men will only not forestal the same by of God, and by some divine mandate interdicted hastening to cut the first worthless vegetation of to human wisdom, we shall address ourselves to muscus and weeds, and grasping with a childish remove this weak and jealous notion, and, relying passion and vain precipitation at the first pledges on simple truth, shall bring the inquiry to this of works. And in handling the points we have issue, not only to silence the howl of superstition, enumerated, enough, we think, shall have been but to draw religion herself to our side. Again, done to guard against that species of prejudice if the idea should occur to any one, that great and which is inspired by false and illiberal notions of scrupulous delay in experiments, and the tossing the thing propounded; and therewithal we judge about, so to speak, on a sea of matter and particu- that our second part, which we call the preparalar facts, which we impose on men, must needs tory, is complete ;-after every adverse gust from plunge the mind into a very Tartarus of confusion, religion, from theoretical speculation, and from and cast it down from the serenity and coolness ivil wisdom, with its handmaids, distrust, phleg After having levelled the area of the mind, it follows in order, that we must place the mind in an advantageous position, and, as it were, in a kindly exposure to the rays of what we propound. For since, in a matter of novelty, not merely the violent preoccupation of old opinion, but also a false preconception or conjectural picture of that which is offered, disposes to prejudice, we must also apply a remedy to this disorder, and the mind must not only be disencumbered but prepared. That preparation is nothing more than to have true opinions of that which we allege imparted provisionally only, as it were, and by way of loan, previous to a thorough knowledge of the thing itself. Now, this mainly depends on shutting out, and holding in abeyance those foul and malign suspicions, which, we may easily augur, will, from the prejudices now in vogue, as from the contagion of an epidemic fanatical gloom, seize upon men's minds; wherefore it behoves us to see, as Lucretius hath it, "Ne qua Occurrat facies inimica atque omnia turbet." ject to the philosophers. Wherefore it is not the honesty, candour, or openness to conviction of other men, which we are to confide in for support, but our own care, address, and conciliation. matic coldness, and the ike, shall have sunk and | so disposed. For no man by mere energy of will died away. commands his intellect, the spirits of the philosoYet to form a preparation in all respects per-phers (as it is written of the prophets) are not subfect, it seems still to be wanting, that we remove the stagnation of mind, which is generated by the utter novelty of our plan. This unfriendly torpor is only dispelled by the explanation of its causes; for it is the knowledge of its causes alone that solves the prodigy, and puts an end to the stupor of astonishment. Wherefore we shall here note all those perverse and troublesome obstacles by which true science hath been checked and retarded, so that it is not at all astonishing that men should have been so long involved, and toiled on, in the meshes of error. And in this part of the subject one thing will felicitously come in, as a solid reason for hope, namely, that although the true interpretation of nature, wherein we toil, be justly held most difficult, yet by far the greatest part of that difficulty depends upon what lies within our own power and admits of correction, not on things placed beyond our sphere of capacity; I mean in the mind, not in things, or in the senses. Now, if any one deem that scrupulous care with which we strive to prepare men's minds is uncalled for-that it is of the nature of parade, and got up for purposes of display, and should therefore desire to see denuded of all circumlocution and the scaffolding of preliminaries, a simple statement; assuredly such an insinuation, were it founded in truth, would come well recommended to us. Would that it were as easy for us to conquer difficulties and obstructions, as to cast away idle pomp and false elaboration. But this we would have men believe, that it is not within due exploration of the route, that we pursue our path in such a desert, especially having in hand such a theme, as it were monstrous to lose by incompetent handling, and to leave exposed, as by an unnatural mother. Wherefore, duly meditating and contemplating the state both of nature and of mind, we find the avenues to men's understandings harder of access than to things themselves, and the labour of communicating not much lighter than of excogitating; and, therefore, which is almost a new feature in the intellectual world, we obey the humour of the time, and play the nurse, both with our own thoughts and those of others. For every hollow idol is dethroned by skill, insinuation, and regular approaches; whereas by violence, by opposition, and by irregular and abrupt attacks, it is exasperated into energy. Nor does this take place only because men, enslaved by admiration of certain authors, or bloated with self-sufficiency, or reluctant from some habit, will not exert their candour. Even were any one willing in the utmost degree to exact of himself impartiality as a duty, and to forswear, as it were, every prejudice, it does not follow that we are to repose unlimited confidence in the award of a mind VOL. II.-70 In which respect no small difficulty is further created to us from our own character, having laid it down as an inviolable law evermore to hold fast our integrity and ingenuousness, and not to seek an entrance for truth through hollow ways, but so to regulate our compliance as by no subtle deception, by no imposture or aught that resembles imposture, but only by the light of order and the skilful grafting of new shoots upon the healthier part of the old, to hope for the attainment of our desires. Wherefore we return to this assertion, that the labour consumed by us in paving the way, so far from being superfluous, is truly too little for difficulties so considerable. Leaving, therefore, the preparatory part, we now come to the informing, and shall exhibit a simple and bare outline of that art which we intend. The things which make for the perfecting of the intellect in the interpretation of nature, may be divided into three ministrations to the same, ministration to sense, ministration to memory, and ministration to reason. In ministration to the senses we shall make exposition of three things, first, how a good notion is collected and elicited, and how the testimony of sense, which is ever according to the analogy of man, may be reduced and rectified to the analogy of the universe. For we do not attach much weight to the immediate perceptions of sense, except only in so far as it manifests motion or change in its objects. Secondly, we shall show how those things which baffle the sense, either by intangibility of the entire substance, or by minuteness of parts, or by remoteness of place, or by slowness or celerity of motion, or by habitual familiarity of the object, or otherwise, may be brought under the jurisdiction of sense, and placed at its bar; and, furthermore, in cases where they cannot be produced, what is then to be done; and how such deficiency may be filled up by skilful noting of gradations, or by informations as to inanimate bodies derived from the analogy of corresponding sentient ones, or by other modes and substitutions. In the last place, we shall speak of a Natural History, and the method of performing experiments; what that Natural History is, which will serve as a foundation for philosophy; and again what method of experimenting, in the want of such natural history, must be resorted to; wherein we shall also interweave some observations as to calling forth and arresting the attention. For there are many things both in natural history and in experiments, present to knowledge, absent to use, 3 A |