NOVUM ORGANUM. 41 



and moderns. Truth is not to be sought in the good for 

 tune of any particular conjuncture of time, which is uncer 

 tain, but in the light of nature and experience, which is 

 eternal. Such factions, therefore, are to be abjured, and 

 the understanding must not allow them to hurry it on to 

 assent. 



57. The contemplation of nature and of bodies in their 

 individual form distracts and weakens the understanding : 

 but the contemplation of nature and of bodies in their 

 general composition and formation stupifies and relaxes it. 

 We have a good instance of this in the school of Leucippus 

 and Democritus compared with others: for they applied 

 themselves so much to particulars as almost to neglect the 

 general structure of things, whilst the others were so as 

 tounded whilst gazing on the structure, that they did not 

 penetrate the simplicity of nature. ^ These two species of 

 contemplation must therefore be interchanged, and each 

 employed in its turn, in order to render the understanding 

 at once penetrating and capacious, and to avoid the incon 

 veniences we have mentioned, and the idols that result 

 from them. 



58. Let such, therefore, be our precautions in contem 

 plation, that we may ward off and expel the idols of the 

 den : which mostly owe their birth either to some pre 

 dominant pursuit ; or, secondly, to an excess in synthesis 

 and analysis ; or, thirdly, to a party zeal in favour of certain 

 ages ; or, fourthly, to the extent or narrowness of the sub 

 ject. In general he who contemplates nature should sus 

 pect whatever particularly takes and fixes his understand 

 ing, and should use so much the more caution to preserve 

 it equable and unprejudiced. 



59. The idols * of the market are the most troublesome 

 of all, those namely which have entwined themselves round 

 the understanding from the associations of words and names. 

 For men imagine that their reason governs words, whilst, 

 in fact, words react upon the understanding ; and this has 

 rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inac 

 tive. Words are generally formed in a popular sense, and 

 define things by those broad lines which are most obvious 

 to the vulgar mind ; but when a more acute understanding, 

 or more diligent observation is anxious to vary those lines, 

 and to adapt them more accurately to nature, words oppose 

 it. Hence the great and solemn disputes of learned men 



Hence to Aphorism 61 treats of the idols of the market. 



