NOVUM ORGANUM 67 



of Amadis de Gaul and Arthur of Britain. For those illus 

 trious generals are found to have actually performed greater 

 exploits than such fictitious heroes are even pretended to 

 have accomplished, by the means, however, of real action, 

 and not by any fabulous and portentous power. Yet it is 

 not right to suffer our belief in true history to be dimin 

 ished, because it is sometimes injured and violated by 

 fables. In the meantime we cannot wonder that great 

 prejudice has been excited against any new propositions 

 (especially when coupled with any mention of effects to be 

 produced), by the conduct of impostors who have made a 

 similar attempt; for their extreme absurdity, and the dis 

 gust occasioned by it, has even to this day overpowered 

 every spirited attempt of the kind. 



LXXXV11L Want of energy, and the littleness and 

 futility of the tasks that human industry has undertaken, 

 have produced much greater injury to the sciences: and 

 yet (to make it still worse) that very want of energy mani 

 fests itself in conjunction with arrogance and disdain. 



For, in the first place, one excuse, now from its repeti 

 tion become familiar, is to be observed in every art, namely, 

 that its promoters convert the weakness of the art itself into 

 a calumny upon nature: and whatever it in their hands fails 

 to effect, they pronounce to be physically impossible. But 

 how can the art ever be condemned while it acts as judge in 

 its own cause ? Even the present system of philosophy cher 

 ishes in its bosom certain positions or dogmas, which (it 

 will be found on diligent inquiry) are calculated to produce 

 a full conviction that no difficult, commanding, and power 

 ful operation upon nature ought to be anticipated through 

 the means of art; we instanced 49 above the alleged different 



49 See Axiom 75. 



