FRANCIS OF VERULAM S 

 GREAT INSTAURATION. 



- ^ PREFACE. 



ON THE STATE OF LEARNING. THAT IT IS NEITHER PROSPEROUS NOR 



GREATLY ADVANCED, AND THAT AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT WAY 

 FROM ANY KNOWN TO OUR PREDECESSORS MUST BE OPENED TO 

 THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, AND DIFFERENT HELPS BE OB 

 TAINED, IN ORDER THAT THE MIND MAY EXERCISE ITS JURISDIC 

 TION OVER THE NATURE OF THINGS. 



IT appears to me that men know not either their acquire 

 ments or their powers, and trust too much to the former, 

 and too little to the latter. Hence it arises that, either es 

 timating the arts they have become acquainted with at an 

 absurd value, they require nothing more, or forming too 

 low an opinion of themselves, they waste their powers on 

 trivial objects, without attempting any thing to the pur 

 pose. The sciences have thus their own pillars, fixed as it 

 were by fate,* since men are not roused to penetrate beyond 

 them either by zeal or hope : and inasmuch as an imagi 

 nary plenty mainly contributes to a dearth, and from a 

 reliance upon present assistance, that which will really 

 hereafter aid us is neglected, it becomes useful, nay clearly 

 necessary, in the very outset of our work, to remove, without 

 any circumlocution or concealment, all excessive conceit 

 and admiration of our actual state of knowledge, by this 

 wholesome warning not to exaggerate or boast of its extent 

 or utility. For if any one look more attentively into that 

 vast variety of books which the arts and sciences are so 

 proud of, he will every where discover innumerable repeti 

 tions of the same thing, varied only by the method of 

 treating it, but anticipated in invention ; so that although 

 at first sight they appear numerous, they are found, upon 



* Alluding to the frontispiece of the original work, which represents a vessel 

 passing beyond the Pillars of Hercules. 



