NOVUM ORGANUM 



mists have made several discoveries, and presented mankind 

 with useful inventions. But we may well apply to them the 

 fable of the old man, who bequeathed to his sons some gold 

 buried in his garden, pretending not to know the exact spot, 

 whereupon they worked diligently in digging the vineyard, 

 and though they found no gold, the vintage was rendered 

 more abundant by their labor* 



The followers of natural magic, who explain everything 

 by sympathy and antipathy, have assigned false powers and 

 marvellous operations to things by gratuitous and idle con 

 jectures: and if they have ever produced any effects, they 

 are rather wonderful and novel than of any real benefit or 

 utility. 



In superstitious magic (if we say anything at all about 

 it) we must chiefly observe, that there are only some pecul 

 iar and definite objects with which the curious and supersti 

 tious arts have, in every nation and age, and even under 

 every religion, been able to exercise and amuse themselves. 

 Let us, therefore, pass them over. In the meantime we 

 cannot wonder that the false notion of plenty should have 

 occasioned want. 



LXXXVI. The admiration of mankind with regard to 

 the arts and sciences, which is of itself sufficiently simple 

 and almost puerile, has been increased by the craft and ar 

 tifices of those who have treated the sciences, and delivered 

 them down to posterity. For they propose and produce 

 them to our view so fashioned, and as it were masked, as 

 to make them pass for perfect and complete. For if you 

 consider their method and divisions, they appear to em- 

 brace and comprise everything which can relate to the 

 subject. And although this frame be badly filled up and 

 resemble an empty bladder, yet it presents to the vul- 



