SO NOVUM ORGANUM 



what the ancients have correctly laid down, nor to despise 

 the just innovations of the moderns. But this is very preju 

 dicial to the sciences and philosophy, and instead of a cor 

 rect judgment we have but the factions of the ancients and 

 moderns. Truth is not to be sought in the good fortune 

 of any particular conjuncture of time, which is uncertain, 

 but in the light of nature and experience, which is eternal. 

 Such factions, therefore, are to be abjured, and the under 

 standing must not allow them to hurry it on to assent. 



LYII. The contemplation of nature and of bodies in 

 their individual form distracts and weakens the understand 

 ing; but the contemplation of nature and of bodies in their 

 general composition and formation stupefies and relaxes it. 

 We have a good instance of this in the school of Leucippus 

 and Democritus compared with others, for they applied 

 themselves so much to particulars as almost to neglect the 

 general structure of things, while the others were so as 

 tounded while gazing on the structure that they did not 

 penetrate the simplicity of nature. These two species of 

 contemplation must, therefore, be interchanged, and each 

 employed in its turn, in order to render the understanding 

 at once penetrating and capacious, and to avoid the incon 

 veniences we have mentioned, and the idols that result 

 from them. 



LYIII. Let such, ..therefore, be our precautions in con 

 templation, that we may ward off and expel the idols of 

 the den, which mostly owe their birth either to some pre 

 dominant pursuit, or, secondly, to an excess in synthesis 

 and analysis, or, thirdly, to a party zeal in favor of certain 

 ages, or, fourthly, to the extent or narrowness of the sub 

 ject. In general, he who contemplates nature should sus 

 pect whatever particularly takes and fixes his understand- 



