42 NOVUM ORGANUM 



they arrive at atoms; and yet were all this true, it would 

 be of little use to advance man s estate. 



LXVIL The understanding must also be cautioned 

 against the intemperance of systems, so far as regards its 

 giving or withholding its assent; for such intemperance ap 

 pears to fix and perpetuate idols, so as to leave no means 

 of removing them. 



These excesses are of two kinds. The first is seen in 

 those who decide hastily, and render the sciences positive 

 and dictatorial. The other in those who have introduced 

 scepticism, and vague unbounded inquiry. The former sub 

 dues, the latter enervates the understanding. The Aristo 

 telian philosophy, after destroying other systems (as the 

 Ottomans 81 do their brethren) by its disputatious confuta 

 tions, decided upon everything, and Aristotle himself then 

 raises up questions at will, in order to settle them; so that 

 everything should be certain and decided, a method now in 

 use among his successors. 



The school of Plato introduced scepticism, first, as it 

 were in joke and irony, from their dislike to Protagoras, 

 Hippias, 38 and others, who were ashamed of appearing not 



pression potential matter refers to that substance forming the basis of the 

 Peripatetic system, which virtually contained all the forms that it was in the 

 power of the efficient cause to draw out of it. Ed. 



31 An allusion to the humanity of the Sultans, who, in their earlier histories 

 are represented as signalizing their accession to the throne by the destruction of 

 their family, to remove the danger of rivalry and the terrors of civil war. Ed. 



32 The text is &quot;in odium veterum sophistarum, Protagorse, Hippise, et reli- 

 quorum.&quot; Those were called sophists, who, ostentationis aut questus causa 

 philosophabantur. (Acad. Prior, ii. 22.) They had corrupted and degraded 

 philosophy before Socrates. Protagoras of Abdera Opfiijpo), the most cele 

 brated, taught that man is the measure of all things, by which he meant not 

 only that all which can be known is known only as it related to our faculties, 

 but also that apart from our faculties nothing can be known. The sceptics 



