 Author's Preface to the New Organon This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Alan Shaw The New Organon by Francis Bacon Translated by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath. Author's Preface Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have their end on philosophy and the science as great injury. For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry, and have done more harm by spoiling and putting an end to other men's efforts than good by their own. Those on the other hand who have taken a contrary course and asserted that absolutely nothing can be known, whether it were from hatred of the ancient Sophists or from uncertainty and fluctuation of mind, or even from a kind of fullness of learning that they fell upon this opinion, have certainly advanced reasons for it that are not to be despised, but yet they have neither started from true principles nor rested in the just conclusion, zeal and affectation having carried them much too far. The more ancient of the Greeks, whose writings are lost, took up with better judgment a position between these two extremes. Between the presumption of pronouncing on everything and the despair of comprehending anything, and though frequently and bitterly complaining of the difficulty of inquiry and the obscurity of things, and like impatient horses champing at the bit, they did not the less follow up their object and engage with nature, thinking it seems that this very question, Vidalis it, whether or not anything can be known, was to be settled not by arguing but by trying, and yet they too, trusting entirely to the force of their understanding, applied no rule, but made everything turn upon hard thinking and perpetual working and exercise of the mind. Now my method, though hard to practice, is easy to explain, and it is this. I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty. The evidence of the sense helped and guarded by a certain process of correction I retain. But the mental operation which follows the active sense I for the most part reject, and instead of it I open and lay out a new and certain path for the mind to proceed in, starting directly from the simple sensuous perception. The necessity of this was felt no doubt by those who attributed so much importance to logic, showing thereby that they were in search of help for the understanding and had no confidence in the native and spontaneous process of the mind. But this remedy comes too late to do any good, when the mind is already, through the daily intercourse and conversation of life, occupied with unsound doctrines and be set on all sides by vain imaginations. And therefore that art of logic, coming as I said too late to the rescue and no way able to set matters right again, has had the effect of fixing errors rather than disclosing truth. There remains but one course for the recovery of a sound and healthy condition, namely that the entire work of the understanding be commenced afresh, and the mind itself be from the very outset not left to take its own course but guided at every step, and the business be done as if by machinery. Certainly if in things mechanical, men had set to work with their naked hands without help or force of instruments, just as in things intellectual they have set to work with little else than the naked forces of the understanding. Very small would the matters have been which, even with their best efforts applied in conjunction, they could have attempted or accomplished. Now, to pause a while upon this example and look in it as in a glass, let us suppose that some vast obelisk were, for the decoration of a triumph or some such magnificence, to be removed from its place, and that men should set to work upon it with their naked hands. Would not any sober spectator think them mad? And if they should then send for more people thinking that in that way they might manage it, would he not think them all the matter? And if they then proceeded to make a selection, putting away the weaker hands and using only the strong and vigorous, would he not think them madder than ever? And if lastly, not content with this, they resolved to call in aid the art of athletics, and required all their men to come with hands, arms, and sinews well anointed and medicated, according to the rules of the art. Would he not cry out that they were only taking pains to show a kind of method and discretion in their madness? Yet just so it is that men proceed in matters intellectual, with just the same kind of mad effort and useless combination of forces, when they hope great things either from the number and cooperation, or from the excellency and acuteness of individual wits. Yea, and when they endeavor by logic, which may be considered as a kind of athletic art, to strengthen the sinews of the understanding. And yet with all this study and endeavor, it is apparent to any true judgment that they are but applying the naked intellect all the time. Whereas in every great work to be done by the hand of man, it is manifestly impossible without instruments of machinery, either for the strength of each to be exerted, or the strength of all to be united. Upon these premises two things occur to me of which, that they may not be overlooked, I would have men remind it. First, it falls out fortunately as I think for the alleging of contradictions and heart-burnings, and reverence due to the ancients remains untouched and undiminished, while I may carry out my designs and at the same time reap the fruit of my modesty. For if I should profess that I, going the same road as the ancients, have something better to produce, there must needs have been some comparison or rivalry between us, not to be avoided by any art of words, in respect of excellency or ability of wit. And though in this there would be nothing unlawful or new, for if there be anything misapprehended by them I will also lay down why may not I, using a liberty common to all take exception to it, yet the contest however just and allowable would have been an unequal one perhaps in respect of the measure of my own powers. As it is however, my object being to open a new way for the understanding, away by them untried and unknown, the case is altered, party zeal and emulation are at an end, and I appear merely as a guide to point out the road, an office of small authority, and depending more upon a kind of luck than upon any ability or excellency, and thus much relates to the persons only, the other point of which I would have been reminded relates to the matter itself. Be it remembered then that I am far from wishing to interfere with the philosophy which now flourishes, or with any other philosophy more correct and complete than this, which has been or may hereafter be propounded. For I do not object to the use of this received philosophy or others like it, for supplying matter for disputations or ornaments for discourse, for the professor's lecture, and for the business of life. Name or I declare openly that for these uses the philosophy which I bring forward will not be much available. It does not lie in the way. It cannot be caught up in passage. It does not flatter the understanding by conformity with preconceived notions, nor will it come down to the apprehension of the vulgar, except by its utility and effects. Let there be therefore, and may it be for the benefit of both, two streams and two dispensations of knowledge, and in like manner, hundreds of students in philosophy, tribes not hostile or alien to each other, but bound together by mutual services. Let there in short be one method for the cultivation, another for the invention of knowledge. And for those who prefer the former, either from hurry or from considerations of business or for a want of mental power to take in and embrace the other, which must needs be most men's case, I wish that they may succeed to their desire in what they are about and obtain what they are pursuing. But if there be any man who not content to rest in and use the knowledge which has already been discovered, aspires to penetrate further to overcome not an adversarian argument, but nature and action, to seek not pretty and probable conjectures, but certain and demonstrable knowledge. I invite all such to join themselves as true sons of knowledge with me, that passing by the outer courts of nature, which numbers have trodden, we may find a way at length into her inner chambers. And to make my meaning clearer and to familiarize the thing by giving it a name, I have chosen to call one of these methods or ways anticipation of the mind, the other interpretation of nature. Moreover, I have one request to make. I have on my own part made it my care and study that the things which I shall propound should not only be true, but should also be presented to men's minds, how strangely so ever preoccupied and obstructed, in a manner not harsh or unpleasant. It is but reasonable, however, especially in so great a restoration of learning and knowledge, that I should claim of men one favor in return, which is this, if anyone would form an opinion or judgment either out of his own observation or out of the crowd of authorities or out of the forms of demonstration which have now acquired a sanction like that of judicial laws. Concerning these speculations of mine, let him not hope that he can do it in passage or by the by, but let him examine the thing thoroughly, let him make some little trial for himself of the way which I describe and lay out. Let him familiarize his thoughts with that subtlety of nature to which experience bears witness, let him correct by seasonable patience and due delay the depraved and deep-rooted habits of his mind, and when all this is done and he has begun to be his own master, let him, if he will, use his own judgment. End of Authors' Preface Recording by Alan Shaw aphorisms one to forty-four of book one of The New Organon This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Shaw The New Organon by Francis Bacon translated by James Spedding Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath aphorisms one to forty-four of book one aphorisms one man, being the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything. Aphorisms two Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can affect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions. Aphorisms three Human knowledge and human power meet in one for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule. Aphorisms four Toward the effecting of works all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within. Aphorisms five The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist and the magician. But by all as things now are with slight endeavor and scanty success. Aphorisms six It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried. Aphorisms seven The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufacturers. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known not in the number of axioms. Aphorisms eight Moreover, the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences. For the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented not methods of invention or solutions for new works. Aphorisms nine The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this, that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind, we neglect to seek for its true helps. Aphorisms ten The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding, so that all those specious meditations, speculations and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it. Aphorism eleven As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences. Aphorism twelve The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation and commonly receive notions than to help the search after truth, so it does more harm than good. Aphorism thirteen The syllogism is not applied to the first principles of sciences and is applied in vain to intermediate axioms being no match for the subtlety of nature. It commands a scent therefore to the proposition but does not take hold of the thing. Aphorism fourteen The syllogism consists of propositions. Propositions consist of words. Words are symbols of notions. Therefore if the notions themselves which is the root of the matter are used and over hastily abstracted from the facts there can be no firmness in the superstructure. Our only hope therefore lies in a true induction. Aphorism fifteen There is no soundness in our notions whether logical or physical. Substance, quality, action, passion, essence itself are not sound notions. Much less are heavy, light, dense, rare, moist, dry, generation, corruption, attraction, repulsion, element, matter, form and the like but all are fantastical and ill-defined. Aphorism sixteen Our notions of less general species as man, dog, dove and of the immediate perceptions of the sense as hot, cold, black, white do not materially mislead us yet even these are sometimes confused by the flux and alteration of matter and the mixing of one thing with another. All the others which man have hitherto adopted are but wanderings, not being abstracted and formed from things by proper methods. Aphorism seventeen Nor is there less of willfulness and wandering in the construction of axioms than in the formation of notions, not accepting even those very principles which are obtained by common induction but much more in the axioms and lower propositions induced by the syllogism. Aphorism eighteen The discoveries which have hitherto been made in the sciences are such as lie close to vulgar notions, scarcely beneath the surface. In order to penetrate into the inner and further recesses of nature, it is necessary that both notions and axioms be derived from things by a more sure and guarded way and that a method of intellectual operation be introduced altogether better and more certain. Aphorism nineteen There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. One flies from the senses in particulars to the most general axioms and from these principles the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable proceeds to judgment into the discovery of middle axioms. In this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses in particulars rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way but as yet untried. Aphorism twenty The understanding left to itself takes the same course, namely the former, which it takes in accordance with logical order. For the mind longs to spring up to positions of higher generality that it may find rest there and so after a little while wearies of experiment but this evil is increased by logic because of the order and solemnity of its disputations. Aphorism twenty-one The understanding left to itself in a sober, patient and grave mind especially if it be not hindered by received doctrines, tries a little that other way, which is the right one, but with little progress since the understanding, unless directed and assisted, is a thing unequal and quite unfit to contend with the obscurity of things. Aphorism twenty-two Both ways set out from the senses in particulars and rest in the highest generalities but the difference between them is infinite. For the one just glances at experiment in particulars in passing the other dwells duly and orderly among them. The one again begins at once by establishing certain abstract and useless generalities the other rises by gradual steps to that which is prior and better known in the order of nature. Aphorism twenty-three There is a great difference between the idols of the human mind and the ideas of the divine, that is to say between certain empty dogmas and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature. Aphorism twenty-four It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument but axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars and thus render science as active. Aphorism twenty-five The axioms now in use having been suggested by a scanty and manipular experience and a few particulars of most general occurrence are made for the most part just large enough to fit and take these in and therefore it is no wonder if they do not lead to new particulars and if some opposite instance not observed or not known before chance to come in the way the axiom is rescued and preserved by some frivolous distinction whereas the truer course would be to correct the axiom itself. Aphorism twenty-six The conclusions of human reason as ordinarily applied in matters of nature I call for the sake of distinction anticipations of nature as a thing rash or premature that reason which is elicited from facts by a just and methodical process I call interpretation of nature. Aphorism twenty-seven Anticipations are grounds sufficiently firm for consent for even if men went mad all after the same fashion they might agree one with another well enough. Aphorism twenty-eight For the winning of ascent indeed anticipations are far more powerful than interpretations because being collected from a few instances and those for the most part of familiar occurrence they straightway touch the understanding and feel the imagination whereas interpretations on the other hand being gathered here and there from very various and widely dispersed facts cannot suddenly strike the understanding and therefore they must needs in respect of the opinions of the time seem harsh and out of tune much as a faith do. Aphorism twenty-nine In sciences founded on opinions and dogmas the use of anticipations and logic is good for in them the object is to command ascent to the proposition not to master the thing. Aphorism thirty Though all the wits of all the ages should meet together and combine and transmit their labors yet will no great progress ever be made in science by means of anticipations because radical errors in the first concoction of the mind are not to be cured by the excellence of functions and subsequent remedies. Aphorism thirty-one It is idle to expect any great advancement in science from the super inducing and engrafting of new things upon old. We must begin anew from the very foundations unless we would revolve forever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress. Aphorism thirty-two The honor of the ancient authors and indeed of all remains untouched since the comparison I challenge is not of wits or faculties but of ways and methods and the part I take upon myself is not that of a judge but of a guide. Aphorism thirty-three This must be plainly avowed no judgment can be rightly formed either of my method or of the discoveries to which it leads by means of anticipations that is to say of the reasoning which is now in use since I cannot be called on to abide by the sentence of a tribunal which is itself on trial. Aphorism thirty-four Even to deliver and explain what I bring forward is no easy matter for things in themselves new will yet be apprehended with reference to what is old. Aphorism thirty-five It was said by Borgia of the expedition of the French into Italy that they came with chalk in their hands to mark out their lodgings not with arms to force their way in. I in like manner would have my doctrine enter quietly into the minds that are fit incapable of receiving it for confutations cannot be employed when the difference is upon first principles between notions and even upon forms of demonstration. Aphorism thirty-six One method of delivery alone remains to us which is simply this we must lead men to the particulars themselves in their series and order while men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts. Aphorism thirty-seven The doctrine of those who have denied that certainty could be attained at all is some agreement with my way of proceeding at the first setting out, but they end in being infinitely separated and opposed. For the holders of that doctrine assert simply that nothing can be known. I also assert that not much can be known in nature by the way which is now in use, but then they go on to destroy the authority of the senses and understanding, whereas I proceed to devise and supply helps for the same. Aphorism thirty-eight The idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human being and have taken deep root therein not only so beset men's minds that truth can hardly find entrance, but even after entrance is obtained they will again in the very instauration of the sciences meet in trouble us unless men being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults. Aphorism thirty-nine There are four classes of idols which beset men's minds to these for distinction's sake I have assigned names, calling the first class idols of the tribe the second idols of the cave the third idols of the marketplace the fourth idols of the theater. Aphorism forty The formation of ideas and axioms by true induction is no doubt the proper remedy to be applied for the keeping off and clearing away of idols. To point them out however is of great use. For the doctrine of idols is to the interpretation of nature what the doctrine of the refutation of idols is to common logic. Aphorism forty-one The idols of the tribe have their foundation in human nature itself and in the tribe or race of men for it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things on the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it. Aphorism forty-two The idols of the cave are the idols of the individual man. For everyone besides the heirs common to human nature in general has a cave or den of his own which refracts and discolors the light of nature owing either to his own proper and peculiar nature or to his education and conversation with others or to the reading of books and the authority of those whom he esteems and admires or to the differences of impressions accordingly as they take place in a mind preoccupied and predisposed or in a mind indifferent and settled or the like so that the spirit of man according as it is meted out to different individuals is in fact a thing variable and full of perturbation and governed as it were by chance. Once it was well observed by Heraclitus that men look for sciences in their own lesser worlds and not in the greater or common world. Aphorism forty-three there are also idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other which I call idols of the marketplace on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar and therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations were within some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding and throw all into confusion and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies. Aphorism forty-four Lastly there are idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call idols of the theater because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the systems now in vogue or only of the ancient sex and philosophies that I speak. For many more plays of the same kind may yet be composed and in like artificial manner set forth seeing that errors the most widely different have nevertheless causes for the most part alike. Neither again do I mean this only of entire systems but also of many principles and axioms in science which by tradition credulity and negligence have come to be received. But of these several kinds of idols I must speak more largely and exactly that the understanding may be duly cautioned. End of aphorisms one to forty-four of book one Recording by Alan Shaw aphorisms forty-five to sixty of book one of the new organon. This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Shaw the new organon by Francis Bacon translated by James Spedding Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath aphorisms forty-five to sixty of book one aphorisms forty-five the human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds and though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and rules which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles spirals and dragons being except a name utterly rejected hence to the element of fire with its orb is brought in to make up the square with the other three which the sense perceives hence also the ratio of density of the so called elements is arbitrarily fixed at ten to one and so on of other dreams and these fancies affect not dogmas only but also. aphorism forty-six the human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself draws all things else to support and agree with it and though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side yet these it either neglects and despises or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination its former conclusions may remain in violet and therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck it would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods I asked he again but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows and such is the way of all superstition whether in astrology dreams omens divine judgments or the like where in men having a delight in such vanities mark the events where they are fulfilled but where they fail though this happened much oftener neglect and pass them by but with far more subtlety does this mischief insinuate itself into philosophy and the sciences in which the first conclusion colors and brings into conformity with itself all that come after though far sounder and better besides independently of that delight and vanity which I have described it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed toward both alike indeed in the establishment of any true axiom the negative instance is the more forcible of the two aphorism 47 the human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly and so fill the imagination and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow though I cannot see how similar to those few things by which it is surrounded but for that going to and fro to remote and heterogeneous instances by which axioms are tried as in the fire the intellect is altogether slow and unfit unless it be forced there to by severe laws and overruling authority aphorism 48 the human understanding is unquiet it cannot stop or rest and still presses onward but in vain therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond neither again can it be conceived how eternity has flowed down to the present day for that distinction which is commonly received of infinity in time past and in time to come can by no means hold for it would then follow that one infinity is greater than another and that infinity is wasting away intending to become finite the like subtlety arises touching the infinite divisibility of lines from the same inability of thought to stop but this inability interferes more mischievously in the discovery of causes for although the most general principles in nature ought to be held merely positive as they are discovered and cannot with truth be referred to a cause nevertheless the human understanding being unable to rest still seek something prior in the order of nature and then it is that in struggling toward that which is farther off it falls back upon that which is near at hand namely on final causes which have relation clearly to the nature of man rather than to the nature of the universe and from this source have strangely defiled philosophy but he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so aphorism 49 the human understanding is no dry light but receives an infusion from the will and affections whence proceed sciences which may be called sciences as one would for what a man had rather were true he more readily believes therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research sober things because they narrow hope the deeper things of nature from superstition the light of experience from arrogance and pride lest his mind should seem to be occupied with things mean and transitory things not commonly believed out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar numberless and short are the ways and sometimes imperceptible in which the affections color and infect the understanding aphorism 50 but by far the greatest hindrance in aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness incompetency and deceptions of the senses and that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it though they be more important hence it is that speculation commonly ceases were sight ceases in so much that of things invisible there is little or no observation hence all the working of the spirits tangible bodies lies hid and unobserved of men so also all the more subtle changes of form in the parts of course of substances which they commonly call alteration though it is in truth local motion through exceedingly small spaces isn't like manner unobserved and yet unless these two things just mentioned be searched out and brought to light nothing great can be achieved in nature as far as the production of works is concerned so again the essential nature of our common air and of all bodies less dense than air very many is almost unknown for the sense by itself is a thing infirm and airing neither can instruments for enlarging or sharpening the senses do much but all the truer kind of interpretation of nature is affected by instances and experiments fit in apposite wherein the sense decides touching the experiment only in the experiment touching the point in nature and the thing itself aphorism 51 the human understanding is of its own nature prone to abstractions and gives a substance in reality to things which are fleeting but to resolve nature into abstractions is less to our purpose than to dissect her into parts as did the school of democratis which went further into nature than the rest matter rather than form should be the object of our attention its configurations and changes of configuration and simple action and law of action or motion for forms are figments of the human mind unless you will call those laws forms aphorism 52 such then are the idols which I call idols of the tribe and which take their rise either from the homogeneity of the substance of the human spirit or from its preoccupation or from its narrowness or from its restless motion or from an infusion of the affections or from the incompetency of the senses or from the mode of impression aphorism 53 the idols of the cave take their rise in the peculiar constitution mental or bodily of each individual and also in education, habit, and accident of this kind there is a great number and variety but I will instance those the pointing out of which contains the most important caution and which have most effect in disturbing the clearness of the understanding aphorism 54 men become attached to certain particular sciences and speculations either because they fancy themselves as authors and inventors thereof or because they have bestowed the greatest pains upon them and become most habituated to them but men of this kind if they but take themselves to philosophy and contemplation of a general character distort and color them in obedience to their former fancies a thing especially to be noticed in Aristotle who made his natural philosophy a mere bond servant to his logic thereby rendering it contentious and well now useless the race of chemists again out of a few experiments of the furnace have built up a fantastic philosophy framed with reference to a few things and Gilbert also after he had employed himself most laboriously in the study and observation of the lodestone proceeded at once to construct an entire system in accordance with his favorite subject aphorism 55 there is one principle and as it were radical distinction between different minds in respect to philosophy in the sciences which is this that some minds are stronger and apter to mark the differences of things others to mark their resemblances the steady and acute mind can fix its contemplations and dwell and fasten on the subtlest distinctions the lofty and discursive mind recognizes and puts together the finest of most general resemblances both kinds however easily air and excess by catching the one at gradations the other at shadows aphorism 56 there are found some minds given to an extreme admiration of antiquity others to an extreme love and appetite for novelty but few so duly tempered that they can hold the mean neither carping at what has been well laid down by the ancients nor despising what is well introduced by the moderns this however turns to the great injury of the sciences and philosophy since these affectations of antiquity and novelty are the humors of partisans rather than judgments and truth is to be sought for not in the felicity of any age which is an unstable thing but in the light of nature and experience which is eternal these factions therefore must be abjured and care must be taken that the intellect be not hurried by them into ascent aphorism 57 contemplations of nature and of bodies in their simple form break up and distract the understanding while contemplations of nature and bodies in their composition and configuration resolve the understanding a distinction well seen in the school of leucipus and democratis as compared with the other philosophies for that school is so busy with the particles that it hardly attends to the structure while the others are so lost in admiration of the structure that they do not penetrate to the simplicity of nature these kinds of contemplations should therefore be alternated and taken by turns so that the understanding may be rendered at once penetrating and comprehensive and the inconveniences above mentioned with the idols which proceed from them to be avoided aphorism 58 let such then be our provision and contemplative prudence for keeping off and dislodging the idols of the cave which grow for the most part either out of the predominance of a favorite subject or out of an excessive tendency to compare or to distinguish or out of partiality for particular ages or out of the largeness or minuteness of the objects contemplated and generally let every student of nature take this as a rule what seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion and that so much the more cares to be taken in dealing with such questions to keep the understanding even and clear aphorism 59 but the idols of the marketplace are the most troublesome of all idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of words and names for men believe that their reason governs words but it is also true that words react on the understanding and this it is that has rendered philosophy in the sciences so fisticle and inactive now words being commonly framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar follow those lines of division which are most obvious to the vulgar understanding and whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or a more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true divisions of nature words stand in the way and resist the change whence it comes to pass that the high informal discussions of learned men end often times and disputes about words and names with which according to the use and wisdom of the mathematicians it would be more prudent to begin and so by means of definitions reduce them to order yet even definitions cannot cure this evil in dealing with natural material things since the definitions themselves consist of words and those words beget others so that it is necessary to recur to individual instances and those induced series in order as I shall say presently when I come to the method and scheme for the formation of notions and axioms aphorism 60 the idols imposed by words on the understanding are of two kinds they are either names of things which do not exist for as there are things left unnamed through lack of observation so likewise are their names which result from fantastic suppositions into which nothing in reality corresponds or they are names of things which exist but yet confused and ill-defined and hastily and irregularly derived from realities of the former kind are fortune the prime mover planetary orbits element of fire and like fictions which owe their origin to false and idle theories and this class of idols is more easily expelled because to get rid of them it is only necessary that all theories should be steadily rejected and dismissed as obsolete but the other class which springs out of a faulty and unskillful abstraction is intricate and deeply rooted let us take for example such a word as humid and see how far the several things which the word is used to signify agree with each other and we shall find the word humid to be nothing else than a mark loosely and confusedly applied to denote a variety of actions which will not bear to be reduced to any constant meaning for it both signifies that which easily spreads itself around any other body and that which in itself is indeterminate and cannot solidize and that which readily yields in every direction and that which easily divides and scatters itself and that which easily unites and collects itself and that which readily flows and is put in motion and that which readily cleans to another body and wets it and that which is easily reduced to a liquid or being solid easily melts accordingly when you come to apply the word if you take it in one sense flame is humid if in another air is not humid if in another fine dust is humid if in another glass is humid so that it is easy to see that the notion is taken by abstraction only from water and common in ordinary liquids without any due verification there are however in words certain degrees of distortion and error one of the least faulty kinds is that of names of substances especially of lowest species and well-deduced for the notion of chalk and of mud is good of earth bad a more faulty kind is that of actions as to generate to corrupt to alter the most faulty is of qualities except such as are the immediate objects of the sense as heavy, light rare, dense and the like yet in all these cases some notions are of necessity a little better than others in proportion to the greater variety of subjects that fall within the range of the human sense end of aphorisms 45 to 60 of book one recording by Alan Shaw aphorism 61 to 68 of book one of the new organon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Alan Shaw the new organon by Francis Bacon translated by James Spedding Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath aphorism 61 to 68 of book one aphorism 61 but the idols of the theater are not innate nor do they steal into the understanding secretly but are plainly impressed and received into the mind from the play books of philosophical systems and the perverted rules of demonstration to attempt refutations in this case would be merely inconsistent with what I've already said for since we agree neither upon principles nor upon demonstrations there is no place for argument and this is so far well in as much as it leaves the honor of the ancients untouched for they are no wise disparaged the question between them and me being only as to the way for as the saying is the lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one nay, it is obvious that when a man runs the wrong way the more active and swift he is the further he will go astray but the course I propose for the discovery of sciences is such as leaves but little to the acuteness and strength of wits but places all wits and understandings nearly on a level for as in the drawing of a straight line the perfect circle much depends on the steadiness and practice of the hand if it be done by aim of hand only but if with the aid of rule or compass little or nothing so is it exactly with my plan but though particular confutations would be of no avail yet touching the sex and general divisions of such systems I must say something something also touching the external signs would show that they are unsound and finally something touching the causes of such great infelicity and of such lasting in general agreement and error that so the access to truth may be made less difficult and the human understanding may the more willingly submit to its purgation and dismiss its idols aphorism 62 idols of the theater or of systems are many and there can be and perhaps will be yet many more for were it not that now for many ages men's minds have been busy with religion and theology and were it not that civil governments especially monarchies have been averse to such novelties even in matter speculative so that men labor there into the peril and harming of their fortunes not only unrewarded but exposed also to contempt and envy doubtless there would have arisen many other philosophical sex like those which in great variety flourished once among the Greeks for as on the phenomena of the heavens many hypotheses may be constructed so likewise and more also many various dogmas may be set up and established on the phenomena of philosophy and in the plays of this philosophical theater you may observe the same thing which is found in the theater of the poets that stories invented for the stage are more compact and elegant and more as one would wish them to be than true stories out of history in general however there is taken from the material of philosophy either a great deal out of a few things or a very little out of many things so that on both sides philosophies based on too narrow a foundation of experiment and natural history and decides on the authority of too few cases for the rational school of philosophers snatches from experience a variety of common instances neither duly ascertained nor diligently examined and weighed and leaves all the rest to meditation and agitation of wit there is also another class of philosophers who having bestowed much diligent and careful labor on a few experiments have thence made bold to induce and construct systems resting all other facts in a strange fashion to conformity therewith and there is yet a third class consisting of those who out of faith mixed their philosophy with theology and traditions among whom the vanity of some has gone so far aside as to seek the origin of sciences among spirits and genie so that this parent stock of errors this false philosophy is of three kinds the Sophistical, the Empirical and the Superstitious aphorism 63 the most conspicuous example of the first class was Aristotle who corrupted natural philosophy by his logic fashioning the world out of categories assigning to the human soul the noblest of substances a genus from words of the second intention doing the business of density and rarity which is to make bodies of greater or less dimensions that is occupy greater or less spaces by the frigid distinction of act and power asserting that single bodies have each a single and proper motion and that if they participate in any other then this results from an external cause and imposing countless other arbitrary restrictions on the nature of things being always more solicitous to provide an answer to the question and affirm something positive in words than about the inner truth of things a failing best shown when his philosophy is compared with other systems of note among the Greeks for the Homo Amor of Annexagoras the Atoms of Lucipus and Democritus the heaven and earth of Parmenides the strife and friendship of Empedocles Heraclitus doctrine how bodies are resolved into the indifferent nature of fire and remolded into solids and have all of them some taste of the natural philosopher some savor of the nature of things and experience and bodies whereas in the physics of Aristotle you hear hardly anything but the words of logic which in his metaphysics also under a more imposing name and more foresooth as a realist than a nominalist he has handled over again nor let any weight be given to the fact that in his books on animals and his problems and other of his treatises there is frequent dealing with experiments however he had come to his conclusion before he did not consult experience as he should have done for the purpose of framing his decisions and axioms but having first determined the question according to his will he then resorts to experience and bending her into conformity with his placets leads her about like a captive in a procession so that even on this count he is more guilty than his modern followers the schoolmen who have abandoned experience altogether aphorism 64 but the empirical school of philosophy gives birth to dogmas more deformed and monstrous than the sophistical or rational school for it has its foundations not in the light of common notions which though it be a faint and superficial light is yet in a manner universal and has referenced to many things but in the narrowness and darkness of a few experiments to those therefore who are daily busyed with these experiments and have infected their imagination with them such a philosophy seems probable and all but certain to all men else incredible and vain of this there is a notable instance in the alchemists and their dogmas though it is hardly to be found elsewhere in these times except perhaps in the philosophy of Gilbert nevertheless with regard to philosophies of this kind there is one caution not to be omitted for I foresee that if ever men aroused by my admonitions to be take themselves seriously to experiment and bid farewell to sophistical doctrines then indeed through the premature hurry of the understanding to leap or fly to universals and principles of things great danger may be apprehended from philosophies of this kind against which evil we ought even now to prepare aphorism 65 but the corruption of philosophy by superstition and an admixture of theology is far more widely spread and does the greatest harm whether to entire systems or to their parts for the human understanding is obnoxious to the influence of the imagination no less than to the influence of common notions for the contentious and sophistical kind of philosophy ensnares the understanding but this kind being fanciful and tumid and half poetical misleads it more by flattery for there is in man an ambition of the understanding no less than of the will especially in high and lofty spirits of this kind we have among the Greeks a striking example in Pythagoras though he united it with a coarser and more cumbersuperstition another in Plato in his school more dangerous and subtle it shows itself likewise in parts of other philosophies in the introduction of abstract forms and final causes and first causes with the omission in most cases of causes intermediate and the like upon this point the greatest caution should be used for nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error and it is a very plague of the understanding for vanity to become the object of veneration yet in this vanity some of the moderns have with extreme levity indulge so far as to attempt to found a system of natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis on the book of Job and other parts of the sacred writings seeking for the dead among the living which also makes the inhibition and repression of it the more important because from this unwholesome mixture of things human and divine there arises not only a fantastic philosophy but also a heretical religion very meat it is therefore that we be sober minded and give to faith that only which is faiths aphorism 66 so much then for the mischievous authorities which are founded either on common notions or on a few experiments or on superstition it remains to speak of the faulty subject matter of contemplations especially in natural philosophy now the human understanding is infected by the sight of what takes place in the mechanical arts in which the alteration of bodies proceeds chiefly by composition or separation and so imagines that something similar goes on in the universal nature of things from this source this flowed the fiction of elements and of their concourse for the formation of natural bodies again when man contemplates nature working freely he meets with different species of things of animals of plants of minerals whence he readily passes into the opinion that there are in nature certain primary forms which nature intends to deduce and that the remaining variety proceeds from hindrances and aberrations of nature in the fulfillment of her work or from the collision of different species and the transplanting of one into another to the first of these speculations we owe our primary qualities of the elements to the other our occult properties and specific virtues and both of them belong to those empty compendia of thought wherein the mind rests and whereby it is diverted from more solid pursuits it is to better purpose that the physicians bestow their labor on the secondary qualities of matter and the operations of attraction, repulsion, attenuation constipation, dilatation astriction, dissipation maturation and the like and were it not that by those two compendia which I've mentioned elementary qualities to wit and specific virtues they corrupted their correct observations in these other matters either reducing them to first qualities and their subtle and incommensurable mixtures or not following them out with greater and more diligent observations to third and fourth qualities but breaking off the scrutiny prematurely they would have made much greater progress nor are powers of this kind I do not say the same but similar to be sought for only in the medicines of the human body but also in the changes of all other bodies but it is a far greater evil that they make the quiescent principles where from and not the moving principles whereby things are produced the object of their contemplation and inquiry for the former tend to discourse the latter to works is there any value in those vulgar distinctions of motion which are observed in the received system of natural philosophy as generation, corruption, augmentation diminution, alteration and local motion what they mean no doubt is this if a body in other respects not changed be moved from its place, this is local motion if without change of place or essence it be changed in quality, this is alteration if by reason of the change the mass and quantity of the body is the same, this is augmentation or diminution if they be changed to such a degree that they change their very essence and substance and turn to something else, this is generation and corruption but all this is merely popular and does not at all go deep into nature for these are only measures and limits not kinds of motion what they intimate is how far not by what means or from what source for they do not suggest anything with regard to the desires of bodies or to the development of their parts it is only when that motion presents the thing grossly and palpably to the sense as different from what it was that they begin to mark the division even when they wish to suggest something with regard to the causes of motion and to establish a division with reference to them, they introduce with the greatest negligence a distinction between motion natural and violent a distinction which is itself drawn entirely from a vulgar notion since all violent motion is also natural, the external efficient simply setting nature working otherwise than it was before but if leaving all this anyone shall observe for instance that there is in bodies a desire of mutual contact so as not to suffer the unity of nature to be quite separated or broken in a vacuum thus made or if anyone say that there is in bodies a desire of resuming their natural dimensions or tension so that if compressed within or extended beyond them they immediately strive to recover themselves and fall back to their old volume and extent or if anyone say that there is in bodies a desire of congregating toward masses of kindred nature of dense bodies for instance toward the globe of the earth of thin and rare bodies toward the compass of the sky all these and the like are truly physical kinds of motion but those others are entirely logical and scholastic as is abundantly manifest from this comparison nor again is it a lesser evil that in their philosophies and contemplations their labor is spent in investigating and handling the first principles of things and the highest generalities of nature whereas utility and the means of working result entirely from things intermediate hence it is that men cease not from abstracting nature till they come to potential and uninformed matter nor on the other hand from dissecting nature till they reach the atom things which even if true can do but little for the welfare of mankind aphorism 67 a caution must also be given to the understanding against the intemperance which systems of philosophy manifest in giving or withholding ascent because intemperance of this kind seems to establish idols and in some sort to perpetuate them leaving no way open to reach and dislodge them this excess is of two kinds the first being manifest in those who are ready and deciding and render science as dogmatic and magisterial the other and those who deny that we can know anything and so introduce a wandering kind of inquiry that leads to nothing of which kinds the former subdues the latter weakens the understanding for the philosophy of Aristotle after having by hostile computations destroyed all the rest as the Ottomans served their brothers has laid down the law on all points which done he proceeds himself to raise new questions of his own suggestion and dispose of them likewise so that nothing may remain that is not certain and decided a practice which holds in is in use among his successors all of Plato on the other hand introduced the Catalypsia at first in jest and irony and in disdain of the older Sophists Protagoras, Hippias and the rest who are of nothing else so much ashamed as of seeming to doubt about anything but the new academy made a dogma of it and held it as a tenet and though theirs is a fairer seeming way than arbitrary decisions since they say that they by no means destroy all investigation like Pirro and his refrainers of things to be followed as probable though of none to be maintained as true yet still when the human mind has once despaired of finding truth its interest in all things grows fainter and the result is that men turn aside to pleasant disputations and discourses and Rome as it were from object to object rather than keep on a course of severe inquisition but as I said at the beginning in a mever urging the human senses and understanding weak as they are deprived of their authority but to be supplied with helps aphorism 68 so much concerning the several classes of idols in their equipage all of which must be renounced and put away with a fixed and solemn determination and the understanding thoroughly freed and cleansed the entrance into the kingdom of man founded on the sciences being not much other than the entrance into the kingdom of heaven wherein too none may enter except as a little child and of aphorism 61 aphorism 68 of book 1 recording by Alan Shaw aphorism 69 to 77 of book 1 of the New Organon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Alan Shaw the New Organon by Francis Bacon translated by James Spedding Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath aphorism 69 to 77 of book 1 aphorism 69 but vicious demonstrations are as the strongholds and defenses of idols and those we have in logic do little else than make the world the bondslave of human thought and human thought the bondslave of words demonstrations truly are in effect the philosophies themselves and the sciences for such as they are well or ill-established such are the systems of philosophy and contemplations which follow now in the whole of the process which leads from the sense and objects to axioms and conclusions the demonstrations which we use are deceptive and incompetent this process consists of four parts and has as many faults in the first place the impressions of the sense itself are faulty for the sense both fails us and deceives us but its shortcomings are to be supplied and its deceptions to be corrected and drawn from the impressions of the senses and are indefinite and confused whereas they should be definite and distinctly bounded thirdly the induction is a myth which infers the principles of sciences by simple enumeration and does not as it ought employ exclusions and solutions or separations of nature lastly that method of discovery and proof according to which the most general principles are first established and then intermediate axioms are tried and proved by them the experiment of error and the curse of all science of these things however which now I do but touch upon I will speak more largely when having performed these expiations and partings of the mind I come to set forth the true way for the interpretation of nature aphorism 70 but the best demonstration by far is experience if it go not beyond the actual experiment for if it be transferred to other cases which are deemed similar it is a fallacious thing but the manner of making experiments which men now use is blind and stupid and therefore wandering and straying as they do with no settled course and taking counsel only from things as they fall out they fetch a wide circuit meet with many matters but make little progress and sometimes are full of hope sometimes are distracted and always find that there is something beyond to be sought for it generally happens that men make their trials carelessly to play slightly varying experiments already known and if the thing does not answer growing weary and abandoning the attempt and even if they apply themselves to experiments more seriously and earnestly and laboriously still they spend their labor and working out some one experiment as Gilbert with the magnet and the chemist with gold a course of proceeding not less unskillful in the design than small in the attempt for no one successfully investigates must be enlarged so as to become more general and even when they seek to do some science or theory from their experiments they nevertheless almost always turn aside with over hasty and unseasonable eagerness to practice not only for the sake of the uses and fruits of the practice but from impatience to obtain in the shape of some new work and assurance for themselves that it is worth their while to go on and also to show themselves off to the world and so raise the credit of the business in which they are engaged thus like Atalanta they go aside to pick up the golden apple but meanwhile they interrupt their course and let the victory escape them but in the true course of experience and in carrying it on to the effecting of new works the divine wisdom and order must be our pattern now God on the first day of creation created light only giving to that work an entire day in which no material substance was created so must we likewise from experience of every kind first endeavor to discover true causes into axioms and seek for experiments of light not for experiments of fruit for axioms rightly discovered and established supply practice with its instruments not one by one but in clusters and draw after them trains and troops of works of the paths however of experience which no less than the paths of judgment are impeded to be set I will speak hereafter here I have only mentioned ordinary experimental research as a bad kind of demonstration but now the order of the matter in hand leads me to add something both as to those signs which I lately mentioned signs that the systems of philosophy and contemplation and use are in a bad condition and also as to the causes of what seems at first so strange and incredible for a knowledge of the signs prepares ascent an explanation of the causes removes the marvel which two things will do much to render the extirpation of idols from the understanding more easy and gentle aphorism 71 which we possess come for the most part from the Greeks for what has been added by Roman Arabic or later writers is not much nor of much importance and whatever it is it is built on the foundation of Greek discoveries now the wisdom of the Greeks was professorial and much given to disputations a kind of wisdom most adverse to the inquisition of truth thus that name of Sophists which by those who would be thought philosophers was in contempt cast back upon and so transferred to the ancient rhetoricians Gorgias Protagoras Hippias Polis does indeed suit the entire class Plato Aristotle Zeno Epicurus Theophrastus and their successors Chrysippus Carnades and the rest there was this difference only that the former class was wandering and mercenary going about from town to town putting up their wisdom to sale and taking a price for it while the latter was more pompous and dignified as composed of men who had fixed abodes and who opened schools and taught their philosophy without reward still both sorts though in other respects unequal were professorial both turned the matter into disputations and set up and battled for philosophical sex and heresies so that their doctrines were for the most part as Dionysius not unapply rallied Plato the talk of idle old men to ignorant youth but the elder of the Greek philosophers Empedocles Anaxagoras Lucipus Democritus Parmenides Heraclitus Xenophonies Philoleus and the rest I omit Pythagoras as a mystic did not so far as we know open schools but more silently and severely and simply that is with less affectation and parade betook themselves to the inquisition of truth and therefore they were in my judgment more successful only that their works were in the course of time obscured by those slider persons who had much more which suits and pleases the capacity and taste of the vulgar time like a river bringing down to us things which are light and puffed up but letting weighty matters sink still even they were not altogether free from the failing of their nation but lean too much to the ambition and vanity of founding a sect and catching popular applause but the inquisition of truth must be disparate of when it turns aside to trifles of this kind nor should we omit that judgment or rather divination which was given concerning the Greeks by the Egyptian priest that they were always boys without antiquity of knowledge or knowledge of antiquity assuredly they have that which is characteristic of boys they are prompt to prattle but cannot generate for their wisdom abounds in words but is barren of works and therefore the signs which are taken from the origin and birthplace of the received philosophy are not good aphorism 72 nor does the character of the time and age yield much better signs than the character of the country and nation for at that period there was but a narrow and meager knowledge either of time or place which is the worst thing that can be especially for those who rest all on experience for they had no history worthy to be called history that went back a thousand years but only fables and rumors of antiquity and of the regions and districts of the world they knew but a small portion giving indiscriminately the name of Scythians to all in the north and of Celts to all in the west knowing nothing of Africa beyond the hitherside of Ethiopia of Asia beyond the Ganges much less where they acquainted with the provinces of the new world even by hearsay or any well founded rumor nay a multitude of climates and zones where an innumerable nations breathe and live were pronounced by them to be uninhabitable and the travels of democratists Plato and Pythagoras which were rather suburban excursions than distant journeys is something great in our times on the other hand both many parts of the new world and the limits on every side of the old world are known and our stock of experience has increased to an infinite amount where for if like astrologers we draw signs from the season of their nativity or birth nothing great can be predicted of those systems of philosophy aphorism 73 of all signs there is none more certain or more noble than that taken from fruits for fruits and works or as it were sponsors and sureties for the truth of philosophies now from all these systems of the Greeks and the ramifications through particular sciences there can hardly after the lapse of so many years be reduced to single experiment which tends to relieve and benefit the condition of man and which can with truth be referred to the speculations and theories of philosophy and celsus ingenuously and wisely owns as much when he tells us that the experimental part of medicine was first discovered and that afterwards men philosophized about it and hunted for an assigned causes and not by an inverse process that philosophy and the knowledge of causes led to the discovery and development of the experimental part and therefore it was not strange that among the Egyptians who rewarded inventors with divine honors and sacred rights there were more images of brutes than of men in as much as brutes by their natural instinct have produced many discoveries whereas men by discussion and the conclusions of reason have given few or none. Some little has indeed been produced by the industry of chemists but it has been produced accidentally and in passing or else by a kind of variation of experiments such as mechanics use and not by any art or theory for the theory which they have devised rather confuses the experiments than aids them they too who have busied themselves with natural magic as they call it have but few discoveries to show and those trifling and imposter like where for as religion we are warned to show our faith by works so in philosophy by the same rule the system should be judged of by its fruits and pronounced frivolous if it be barren where especially if in place of fruits of grape and olive it bear thorns and briars of dispute and contention aphorism 74 signs also are to be drawn from the increase in progress of systems and sciences for what is founded on nature grows and increases while what is founded on opinion varies but increases not if therefore those doctrines had not plainly been like a plant torn up from its roots but had remained attached to the womb of nature and continued to draw a nourishment from her that could never have come to pass which we have seen now for twice a thousand years namely that the sciences stand where they did and remain almost in the same condition receiving no noticeable increase but on the contrary thriving most under their first founder and then declining whereas in the mechanical arts which are founded on nature in the light of experience we see the contrary happen for these as long as they are popular are continually thriving and growing is having in them a breath of life at the first rude then convenient afterwards adorned and at all times advancing aphorism 75 there is still another sign remaining if sign it can be called when it is rather testimony nay of all testimony the most valid I mean the confession of the very authorities who men now follow for even they who lay down the law on all things so confidently do still in their more sober moods fall to complaints of the subtlety of nature the obscurity of things and the weakness of the human mind now if this were all they did some perhaps of a timid disposition might be deterred from further search while others of a more ardent and hopeful spirit might be wedded and incited to go on farther but not content to speak for themselves whatever is beyond their own or their master's knowledge or reach they set down as beyond the bounds of possibility and pronounce as if on the authority of their art that it cannot be known or done thus most presumptuously and invidiously turning the weakness of their own discoveries into a calamity of nature herself and the despair of the rest of the world hence the school of the new academy which held a catalepsy as a tenant and doomed men to perpetual darkness hence the opinion that forms or true differences of things which are in fact laws of pure act are past finding out and beyond the reach of man hence too those opinions in the department of action and operation as that the heat of the sun and of fire are quite different in kind less men should imagine that by the operations of fire anything like the works of nature can be adduced and formed hence the notion that composition only is the work of man and mixture of none but nature less men should expect from art some power of generating or transforming natural bodies by this sign therefore men will easily take warning not to mix up their fortunes and labors with dogmas not only disparate off but dedicated to despair aphorism 76 neither is this other sign to be omitted that formerly there existed among philosophers such great disagreement and such diversities in the schools themselves a fact which sufficiently shows that the road from the senses to the understanding was not skillfully laid out when the same ground work of philosophy the nature of things to wit was torn and split up into such vague and multifarious errors and although in these times disagreements and diversities of opinion on first principles and entire systems are for the most part extinguished still on parts of philosophy there remain innumerable questions and disputes so that it plainly appears that neither in the systems themselves nor in the modes of demonstration is there anything certain or sound aphorism 77 and as for the general opinion that in the philosophy of Aristotle at any rate there is great agreement since after its publication the systems of older philosophers died away while in the times which followed nothing better was found so that it seems to have been so well laid and established as to have drawn both ages in its train I answer in the first place that the common notion of the falling off of the old systems upon the publication of Aristotle's works is a false one for long afterwards down even to the times of Cicero and subsequent ages the works of the old philosophers still remained but in the times which followed when on the inundation of barbarians into the Roman Empire human learning had suffered shipwreck then the systems of Aristotle and Plato like planks of lighter and less solid material floated on the waves of time and were preserved upon the point of consent also men are deceived if the matter be looked into more keenly for true consent is that which consists in the coincidence of free judgments after due examination but farther greater number of those who have ascended to the philosophy of Aristotle have addicted themselves there too from pre-judgment and upon the authority of others so that it is a following in going along together rather than consent but even if it had been a real and widespread consent still so little ought consent to be deemed sure and solid confirmation that it is in fact a strong presumption the other way for the worst of all auguries is from consent and matters intellectual divinity accepted in politics where there is right of vote for nothing pleases the many unless it strikes the imagination or binds the understanding with the bands of common notions as I have already said we may very well transfer therefore from moral to intellectual matters the saying of Phocion that if the multitude is sent and applaud men ought immediately to examine themselves as to what blunder or fault they may have committed this sign therefore is one of the most unfavorable and so much for this point namely that the signs of truth and soundness and the received systems and sciences are not good whether they be drawn from their origin or from their fruits or from their progress or from the confessions of their founders or from general consent and of aphorism 69 to 77 of book one recording by Alan Shaw aphorism 78 to 91 of book one of the new organ on this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Alan Shaw the new organ on by Francis Bacon translated by James Spetting Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath aphorism 78 to 91 of book one aphorism 78 I now come to the causes of these errors and have so long a continuance in them through so many ages which are very many and very potent that all wonder how these considerations which I bring forward should have escaped men's notice till now may cease and the only wonder be how now at last they should have entered into any man's head and become the subject of his thoughts which truly I myself esteem as the result of some happy accident rather than of any excellence of faculty in me a birth of time rather than a birth of wit now in the first place those so many ages if you weigh the case truly shrink into a very small compass for out of the five and twenty centuries over which the memory and learning of men extends you can hardly pick out six that were fertile and sciences are favorable to their development in times no less than in regions there are wastes and deserts for only three revolutions and periods of learning can properly be reckoned one among the Greeks the second among the Romans and the last among us that is to say the nations of western Europe and to each of these hardly two centuries can justly be assigned the intervening ages of the world in respect of any rich or flourishing growth of the sciences were unprosperous for neither the Arabians nor the school men need be mentioned who in the intermediate times rather crushed the sciences with a multitude of treatises than increased their weight and therefore the first cause of some meagre of progress in the sciences is duly and orderly referred to the narrow limits of the time that has been favorable to them aphorism 79 in the second place there presents itself in all ways namely that during those very ages in which the wits and learning of men have flourished most or indeed flourished at all the least part of their diligence was given to natural philosophy yet this very philosophy it is that ought to be esteemed the great mother of the sciences for all arts and all sciences if torn from this root though they may be polished and shaped and made fit for use yet they will hardly grow now it is well known that after the Christian religion was received and grew strong by far the greater number of the best wits in themselves to theology that to this both the highest rewards were offered and helps of all kinds most abundantly supplied and that this devotion to theology chiefly occupied that third portion or epoch of time among us Europeans of the West and the more so because about the same time both literature began to flourish and religious controversies to spring up in the age before on the other hand during the continuance of the second period among the Romans the meditations and labors of philosophers were principally employed and consumed a moral philosophy which to the heathen was as theology to us moreover in those times the greatest wits applied themselves very generally to public affairs the magnitude of the Roman Empire requiring the services of a great number of persons again the age in which natural philosophy was seen to flourish most among the Greeks was but a brief particle of time for an early age is the seven wise men as they were called all except failies applied themselves to morals and politics and in later times when Socrates had drawn down philosophy from heaven to earth moral philosophy became more fashionable than ever and diverted the minds of men from the philosophy of nature nay the very period itself in which inquiries concerning nature flourished was by controversies and the ambitious display of new opinions corrupted and made useless seeing therefore that during those three periods natural philosophy was in a great degree either neglected or hindered it is no wonder if men made but small advance in that to which they were not attending aphorism 80 to this it may be added that natural philosophy even among those who have attended to it has scarcely ever possessed especially in these later times a disengaged and whole man unless it were some monk studying in his cell or some gentleman in his country house but that it has been made merely a passage and bridge to something else and so this great mother of the sciences has with strange indignity been degraded to the offices of a servant having to attend on the business of medicine or mathematics and likewise to wash and imbue youthful and unripe wits with a sort of first die in order that they may be the fitter to receive another afterwards meanwhile let no man look for much progress in the sciences especially in the practical part of them unless natural philosophy be carried on and applied to particular sciences in particular sciences be carried back again to natural philosophy for want of this astronomy optics music a number of mechanical arts medicine itself may what one might more wonder at moral and political philosophy and the logical sciences all together lack profound us and merely glide along the surface and variety of things because after these particular sciences have been once distributed and established they are no more nourished by natural philosophy which might have drawn out of the true contemplation of motions raise sounds texture in configuration of bodies affections and intellectual perceptions the means of imparting to them fresh strength and growth and therefore it is nothing strange if the sciences grow not seeing they are parted from their roots aphorism 81 again there is another great and powerful cause where the sciences have made but little progress which is this it is not possible to run a course right when the goal itself has not been rightly placed now the true and lawful goal of the sciences is none other than this that human life be endowed with new discoveries and powers but of this the great majority have no feeling but are merely hireling and professorial except when it occasionally happens that some workmen of a cuter wit and covetous of honor applies himself to a new invention which he mostly does at the expense of his fortunes but in general so far our men from proposing to themselves to augment the mass of arts and sciences that from the mass already at hand they neither take nor look for anything more than what they may turn to use in their lectures or to gain or to reputation or to some similar advantage and if anyone out of all the multitude court science with honest affection and for her own sake yet even with him the object will be found to be rather the variety of contemplations and doctrines than the severe and rigid search after truth and if by chance there be one who seeks after truth in earnest yet even he will propose to himself such a kind of truth as shall yield satisfaction to the mind and understanding and rendering causes for things long since discovered and not the truth which shall lead to new assurance of works and new light of axioms if then the end of the sciences has not as yet been well placed it is not strange that men have aired as to the means aphorism 82 and as men have misplaced the end and goal of the sciences so again even if they had placed it right yet they have chosen a way to it which is altogether erroneous and impassable and an astonishing thing it is to one who rightly considers the matter that no mortal should have seriously applied himself to the opening and laying out of a road for the human understanding direct from the sense by a course of experiment orderly conducted and well built up but that all has been left either to the mist of tradition or the whirl and eddy of argument or the fluctuations and mazes of chance and a vague and ill digested experience now let any man soberly and diligently consider what the way is by which men have been accustomed to proceed with investigation and discovery of things and in the first place he will no doubt remark a method of discovery very simple and inartificial which is the most ordinary method and is no more than this when a man addresses himself to discover something he first seeks out and sets before him all that has been said about it by others then he begins to meditate for himself and so by much agitation and working of the wit solicits and as it were evokes his own spirit to give him oracles which method has no foundation at all but rests only upon opinions and is carried about with them another may perhaps call in logic to discover it for him but that has no relation to the matter except in name for logical invention does not discover principles in chief axioms of which arts are composed but only such things as appear to be consistent with them for if you grow more curious and important and busy and question her a probations and invention of principles or primary axioms her answer is well known it refers you to the faith you are bound to give to the principles of each separate art there remains simple experience which if taken as it comes is called accident if sought for experiment but this kind of experience is no better than a broom without its band as the saying is a mere groping as of men in the dark that feel all around them for the chance of finding their way when they had much better wait for daylight or light a candle and then go but the true method of experience on the contrary first lights the candle and then by means of the candle shows the way commencing as it does with experience duly ordered and digested not bungling or erratic and from it inducing axioms and from established axioms again new experiments even as it was not without order and method that the divine word operated on the created mass let men therefore cease to wonder that the course of science is not yet holy run seeing that they have gone all together astray either leaving an abandoning experience entirely are losing their way in it and wandering round and round as an elaborate whereas a method rightly ordered leads by an unbroken route through the woods of experience to the open ground of axioms aphorism 83 this evil however has been strangely increased by an opinion or concede which though of longstanding is vain and hurtful namely that the dignity of the human mind is impaired by long and close intercourse with experiments in particulars subject to sense and bound and matter especially as they are laborious to search ignoble to meditate harsh to deliver illiberal to practice infinite number in minute and subtlety so that it has come at length to this that the true way is not merely deserted but shut out and stopped up experience being I do not say abandoned or badly managed but rejected with disdain aphorism 84 again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in the sciences by reverence for antiquity by the authority of men accounted great in philosophy and then by general consent of the last I have spoken above as for antiquity the opinion touching at which men entertain is quite a negligent one and scarcely consonant with the word itself for the old age of the world is to be accounted the true antiquity and this is the attribute of our own times not of that earlier age of the world in which the ancients lived which though in respect of us it was the elder yet in respect of the world it was the younger and truly as we look for greater knowledge of human things in the ripe of judgment in the old man than in the young because of his experience and of the number and variety of the things which he has seen and heard and thought of so unlike manner from our age if it but knew its own strength and chose to assay and exert it much more might fairly be expected than from the ancient times in as much as it is a more advanced age of the world and stored and stocked in the events and observations nor must it go for nothing that by the distant voyages and travels which have become frequent in our times many things in nature have been laid open and discovered which may lead in new light upon philosophy and surely it would be disgraceful if while the regions of the material globe that is of the earth of the sea and of the stars have been in our times laid widely open and revealed the intellectual globe should remain shut up within the narrow limits of old discoveries and with regard to authority it shows a feeble mind to grant so much to authors and yet deny time his rights who is the author of authors nay rather of all authority for rightly his truth called the daughter of time not of authority it is no wonder therefore if those enchantments of antiquity and authority and consent have so bound up men's powers that they have been made impotent like persons bewitched to accompany with the nature of things aphorism 85 nor is it only the admiration of antiquity authority and consent that has forced the industry of man to rest satisfied with the discoveries already made but also an admiration for the works themselves of which the human race has long been in possession for when a man looks at the variety and the beauty of the provision which the mechanical arts have brought together for men's use he will certainly be more inclined to admire the wealth of man than to feel his wants not considering that the original observations and operations of nature which are the life and moving principle of all that variety are not many nor deeply fetched and that the rest is but patience and the subtle and ruled motion of the hand and instruments as the making of clocks for instance is certainly a subtle and exact work their wheels seem to imitate the celestial orbs and they're alternating in orderly motion the pulse of animals and yet all this depends on one or two axioms of nature again if you observe the refinement of the liberal arts or even that which relates to the mechanical preparation of natural substances and take notice of such things as the discovery and astronomy of the motions of the heavens, of harmony and music, of the letters of the alphabet to this day not in use among the Chinese in grammar or again in things mechanical the discovery of the works of Bacchus and Ceres that is of the arts of preparing wine and beer and of making bread the discovery once more of the delicacies of the table of distillations and if you likewise bear in mind the long periods which it has taken to bring these things to their present degree of perfection for they are all ancient except distillation and again as has been said of clocks how little they owe to observations and axioms of nature and how easily and obviously and as it were by casual suggestion they may have been discovered you will easily cease from wondering and on the contrary will pity the condition of mankind seeing that in a course of so many ages there has been so great a dearth and bareness of arts and inventions and yet these very discoveries which we have just mentioned are older than philosophy and intellectual arts so that if the truth must be spoken when the rational and dogmatical sciences began the discovery of useful works came to an end and again if a man turned from the workshop to the library and wonder at the immense variety of books he sees there let him but examine and diligently inspect their matter and contents and his wonder will assuredly be turned the other way for after observing their endless repetitions and how men are ever saying and doing what has been said and done before he will pass from admiration of the variety to astonishment at the poverty and scantiness of the subjects which till now have occupied and possessed the minds of men and if again he descend to the consideration of those arts which are deemed curious rather than safe and look more closely into the works of the alchemists or the magicians he will be in doubt perhaps whether he ought rather to laugh over them or to weep for the alchemist nurses eternal hope and when the thing fails lays the blame upon some error of his own fearing either that he has not sufficiently understood the words of his art or of his authors whereupon he turns to tradition and oricular whispers or else that in his manipulation he has made some slip of a scruple in wait or a moment in time whereupon he repeats his trials to infinity and when, meanwhile among the chances of experiment he lights upon some conclusions either in aspect new or for utility not contemptible he takes these for earnest of what is to come and feeds his mind upon them and magnifies them to the most and supplies the rest and hope the alchemists have made a good many discoveries and presented men with useful inventions but their case may be well compared to the fable of the old man who bequeathed to his son's gold buried in a vineyard pretending not to know the exact spot whereupon the sons applied themselves diligently to the digging of the vineyard and though no gold was found there yet the vintage by that digging was made more plentiful again the students of natural magic who explain everything by sympathies and antipathies having their idol in most slothful conjectures as described to substance's wonderful virtues and operations and if ever they have produced works they have been such as aim rather at admiration and novelty than at utility and fruit in superstitious magic on the other hand, if all this also we must speak it is especially to be observed that they are but subjects of a certain and definite kind wherein the curious and superstitious arts in all nations and ages and religions also have worked or played these therefore we may pass meanwhile it is no strange if opinion of plenty has been the cause of want aphorism 86 further, this admiration of men for knowledges and arts an admiration in itself weak enough and well-nigh childish has been increased by the craft and artifices of those who have handled and transmitted sciences for they set them forth with such ambition and parade and bring them into the view of the world so fashion and mask as if they were complete in all parts and finished for if you look at the method of them and the divisions they seem to embrace and comprise everything which can belong to the subject and although these divisions are ill filled out and are but as empty cases still to the common mind they present the form and plan of a perfect science but the first and most ancient seekers after truth were want with better faith and better fortune too to throw the knowledge which they gathered from the contemplation of things and which they meant to store up for use into aphorisms that is into short and scattered sentences not linked together by an artificial method it did not pretend to profess to embrace the entire art but as the matter now is it is nothing strange if men do not seek to advance in things delivered to them as long since perfect and complete aphorism 87 moreover the ancient systems have received no slight accession of reputation and credit from the vanity and levity of those who have propounded new ones especially in the active and practical department of natural philosophy for there have not been wanting talkers and dreamers who partly from credulity partly an imposter have loaded mankind with promises offering and announcing the prolongation of life the retardation of age the alleviation of pain the repairing of natural defects the deceiving of the senses arts of binding and inciting the affections of illuminating and exalting the intellectual faculties of transmuting substances of strengthening and multiplying motions at will of making impressions and alterations in the air upbringing down and procuring celestial influences arts of divining things future and bringing things distant near and revealing things secret and many more but with regard to these lavish promises this judgment would not be far amiss that there is as much difference in philosophy between their vanities and true arts as there is in history between the exploits of Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great and the exploits of Ahmadis of Gaul or Arthur of Britain for it is true that those illustrious generals do greater things than these shadowy heroes or even feign to have done but they did them by means and ways of action not fabulous or monstrous yet surely it is not fair that the credit of true history should be lessened because it has sometimes been injured and wronged by fables meanwhile it is not to be wondered at if a great prejudice is raised against new propositions especially when works are also mentioned because of those imposters who have attempted the like since their excess of vanity and the disgust it has bred have their effect on the direction of all greatness of mind and enterprises of this kind aphorism 88 far more however has knowledge suffered from littleness of spirit in the smallness and slightness of the tasks which human industry has proposed to itself and what is worst of all this very littleness of spirit comes with a certain air of arrogance and superiority for in the first place there is found in all arts one general device which has now become familiar that the author lays the weakness of his art to the charge of nature whatever his art cannot attain he sets down on the authority of the same art to be in nature impossible and truly no art can be condemned if it be judged itself moreover the philosophy which is now in vogue embraces and cherishes certain tenets the purpose of which if it be diligently examined is to persuade men that nothing difficult nothing by which nature may be commanded and subdued can be expected from art or human labor as with respect to the doctrine that the heat of the sun and a fire differ in kind that other concerning mixture has been already observed which things, if they be noted accurately tend wholly to the unfair circumscription of human power and to a deliberate and factitious despair which not only disturbs the auguries of hope but also cuts the sinews and spur of industry and throws away the chances of experience itself and all for the sake of having their art thought perfect and for the miserable vain glory of making it believe that whatever has not yet been discovered and comprehended can never be discovered or comprehended hereafter and even if a man apply himself fairly to facts and endeavor to find out something new yet he will confine his aim and intention to the investigation and working out of some one discovery and no more such as the nature of the magnet the ebb and flow of the sea the system of the heavens and things of this kind which seem to be in some measure secret and have hitherto been handled without much success whereas it is most unskillful to investigate the nature of anything in the thing itself meaning that the same nature which appears in some things to be latent and hidden is in others manifest and palpable wherefore in the former it produces wonder and the latter excites no attention as we find it in the nature of consistency which in wood or stone is not observed but is passed over under the appellation of solidity without further inquiry as to why separation or solution of continuity is avoided while in the case of bubbles which form themselves into certain pellicles curiously shaped into hemispheres or that the solution of continuity is avoided for a moment it is thought a subtle matter in fact what in some things is accounted a secret has in others a manifest and well-known nature which will never be recognized as long as the experiments and thoughts of men are engaged on the former only but generally speaking in mechanics old discoveries pass for new if a man does but refine or embellish them or unite several in one or couple them better with their use or make the work in greater or less volume before or the like thus then it is no wonder if inventions noble and worthy of mankind have not been brought to light when men have been contented and delighted with such trifling and pure isle tasks and have even fancy that in them they have been endeavoring after if not accomplishing some great matter aphorism 89 neither is it to be forgotten that in every age natural philosophy has had a troublesome and hard to deal with adversary namely superstition and the blind and immoderate zeal of religion for we see among the Greeks that those who first proposed to men's then uninitiated ears the natural causes for thunder and for storms were there upon found guilty of impiety nor was much more forbearance shown by some of the ancient fathers of the Christian church to those who on most convincing ground such as no one in his senses would now think of contradicting maintained that the earth was round and of consequence asserted the existence of the antipodes moreover as things now are to discourse of nature is made harder and more perilous by the summaries and systems of the school men who having reduced theology into regular order as well as they were able and fashioned it into the shape of an heart ended in incorporating the contentious and thorny philosophy of Aristotle more than was fit with the body of religion to the same result though in a different way 10 the speculations of those who have taken upon them to deduce the truth of the Christian religion from the principles of philosophers and to confirm it by their authority pompously solemnizing this union of the sense and faith as a lawful marriage and entertaining men's minds with a pleasing variety of matter but all the while disparaging things divine by mingling them with things human now in such mixtures of theology with philosophy only the received doctrines of philosophy are included while new ones albeit changes for the better are all but expelled and exterminated lastly you will find that by the simple of certain divines access to any philosophy however pure is well nigh closed some are weakly afraid lest a deeper search into nature should transgress the permitted limits of sober mindedness wrongfully resting and transferring what is said in holy writ against those who pry into sacred mysteries to the hidden things of nature which are barred by no prohibition others with more subtlety surmise and reflect that if second causes are unknown everything can more readily be referred to the divine hand and rod in which they think religion greatly concerned which is in fact nothing else but to seek to gratify God with a lie others fear from past example that movements and changes in philosophy will end in assaults on religion and others again appear apprehensive that in the investigation of nature something may be found to subvert or at least shake the authority of religion especially with the unlearned but these two last fears seem to me to savor utterly of carnal wisdom as if men in the recesses and secret are doubted and distressed to the strength of religion and the empire of faith over the sense and therefore fear that the investigation of truth and nature might be dangerous to them but if the matter be truly considered natural philosophy is after the word of God at once the surest medicine against superstition and the most approved nourishment for faith and therefore she is rightly given to religion as her most faithful handmaid since the one displays the will of God the other his power for he did not err who said that you know not the scriptures and the power of God thus coupling and blending in an indissoluble bond information concerning his will and meditation concerning his power meanwhile it is not surprising if the growth of natural philosophy is checked when religion, a thing which has most power over men's minds, has by the simpleness and incautious zeal of certain persons been drawn to take part against her aphorism 90 again in the customs and institutions of schools, academies, colleges and similar bodies destined for the abode of learned men in the cultivation of learning everything is found adverse to the progress of science for the lectures and exercises there are so ordered that to think or speculate on anything out of the common way can hardly occur to any man and if one or two have the boldness to use any liberty of judgment they must undertake the task all by themselves they can have no advantage from the company of others and if they can endure this also they will find their industry and largeness of mind no slight hindrance to their fortune for the studies of men in these places are confined and as it were imprisoned in the writings of certain authors from whom if any man dissent he is straight way arrayed as a turbulent person and an innovator but surely there is a great distinction between matters of state and the arts for the danger from new motion and from new light is not the same in matters of state a change even for the better is distrusted because it unsettles what is established these things resting on authority consent fame and opinion not on demonstration but arts and sciences should be like mines where the noise of new works and further advances is heard on every side but though the matter be so according to right reason it is not so acted on in practice and the points above mentioned in the administration and government of learning put a severe restraint upon the advancement of the sciences aphorism 91 nay even if that jealousy were to cease still it is enough to check the growth of science that efforts and labors in this field go unrewarded for it does not rest with the same persons to cultivate sciences and to reward them the growth of them comes from great wits the prizes and rewards of them are in the hands of the people or of great persons who are but in very few cases even moderately learned moreover this kind of progress is not only unrewarded with prizes and substantial benefits it has not even the advantage of popular applause for it is a greater matter than the generality of men can take in and is apt to be overwhelmed and extinguished by the gales of popular opinions and it is nothing strange if a thing not held in honor does not prosper and of aphorism 78 to 91 of book one recording by Alan Shaw