32 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



and experiment rather than to the sciences. For our pre 

 sent sciences are nothing more than peculiar arrangements 

 of matters already discovered, and not methods for disco 

 very, or plans for new operations. 



9. The sole cause and root of almost every defect in the 

 sciences is this; that whilst we falsely admire and extol 

 the powers of the human mind, we do not search* for its real 

 helps. 



10. The subtilty of nature is far beyond that of sense or 

 of the understanding : so that the specious meditations, 

 speculations, and theories of mankind, are but a kind of 

 insanity, only there is no one to stand by and observe it. 



11. As the present sciences are useless for the discovery 

 of effects, so the present system of logic is useless for the 

 discovery of the sciences. 



12. The present system of logic rather assists in con 

 firming and rendering inveterate the errors founded on 

 vulgar notions, than in searching after truth; and is there 

 fore more hurtful than useful. 



13. The syllogism is not applied to the principles of the 

 sciences, and is of no avail in intermediate axioms, as being 

 very unequal to the subtilty of Nature. It forces assent, 

 therefore, and not things. 



14. The syllogism consists of propositions, propositions 

 of words, words are the signs of notions. If therefore the 

 notions (which form the basis of the whole) be confused 

 and carelessly abstracted from things, there is no solidity 

 in the superstructure. Our only hope, then, is in genuine 

 induction. 



15. We have no sound notions either in logic or physics ; 

 substance, quality, action, passion, and existence are not 

 clear notions ; much less, weight, levity, density, tenuity, 

 moisture, dry ness, generation, corruption, attraction, repul 

 sion, element, matter, form, and the like. They^are all 

 fantastical and ill defined. 



16. The notions of less abstract natures, as man, dog, 

 dove ; and the immediate perceptions of sense, as heat, 

 cold, white, black, do not deceive us materially, yet even 

 these are sometimes confused by the mutability of matter 

 and the intermixture of things. All the rest, which men 

 have hitherto employed, are errors; and improperly ab 

 stracted, and deduced, from things. 



17. There is the same degree of licentiousness and error 

 in forming axioms, as in abstracting notions : and that in 

 the first principles, which depend on common induction. 



