

28 NOVUM ORQANUM 



* /X&amp;gt; 



LIT. Such are the idols of the tribe, which arise either 



from the uniformity of the constitution of man s spirit, or 

 its prejudices, or its limited faculties or restless agitation, 

 or from the interference of the passions, or the incompetence 

 of the senses, or the mode of their impressions. 



LIIL The idols of the den derive their origin Lorn the 

 peculiar nature of each individual s mind and body, and 

 also from education, habit, and accident; and although they 

 be various and manifold, yet we will treat of some that re 

 quire the greatest caution, and exert the greatest power in 

 polluting the understanding. 



LIV. Some men become attached to particular sciences 

 and contemplations, either from supposing themselves the 

 authors and inventors of them, or from having bestowed 

 the greatest pains upon such subjects, and thus become 

 most habituated to them. 21 If men of this description apply 

 themselves to philosophy and contemplations of a universal 



beings: viz., the power or faculty, the act, and the habitude, or in other words 

 that which is able to exist, what exists actually, and what continues to exist. 

 Bacon means that is necessary to fix our attention not on that which can 

 or ought to be, but on that which actually is; not on the right, but on the 

 f&ct.-Ed. 



21 The inference to be drawn from this is to suspect that kind of evidence 

 which is most consonant to our inclinations, and not to admit any notion as real 

 except we can base it firmly upon that kind of demonstration which is peculiar 

 to the subject, not to our impression. Sometimes the mode of proof may bo 

 consonant to our inclinations, and to the subject at the same time, as in the 

 case of Pythagoras, when he applied his beloved numbers to the solution of 

 astronomical phenomena; or in that of Descartes, when he reasoned geomet 

 rically concerning the nature of the soul. Such examples cannot be censured 

 with justice, inasmuch as the methods pursued were adapted to the end of the 

 inquiry. The remark in the text can only apply to those philosophers who at 

 tempt to build up a moral or theological system by the instruments of induction 

 alone, or who rush, with the geometrical axiom, and the d priori syllogism, to 

 the investigation of nature. The means in such cases are totally inadequate 

 to the object in view. Ed. 



