NOVUM ORGANUM. 51 



and bring in their train whole troops of effects. But we 

 will treat hereafter of the ways of experience which are not 

 less beset and interrupted than those of judgment; having 

 spoken at present of common experience only as a bad 

 species of demonstration, the order of our subject now re 

 quires some mention of those external signs of the weak 

 ness in practice of the received systems of philosophy and 

 contemplation* which we referred to above, and of the 

 causes of a circumstance at first sight so wonderful and 

 incredible. For the knowledge of these external signs 

 prepares the way for assent, and the explanation of the 

 causes removes the wonder ; and these two circumstances 

 are of material use in extirpating more easily and gently 

 the idols from the understanding. 



71. The sciences we possess have been principally de 

 rived from the Greeks; for the addition of the Roman, 

 Arabic, or more modern writers are but few, and of small 

 importance; and such as they are, are founded on the 

 basis of Greek invention. But the wisdom of the Greeks 

 was professional and disputatious, and thus most adverse 

 to the investigation of truth. The name therefore of so 

 phists, which the contemptuous spirit of those who deemed 

 themselves philosophers, rejected and transferred to the 

 rhetoricians Gorgias, Protagoras, Hippias, Polus, might 

 well suit the whole tribe, such as Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, 

 Epicurus, Theophrastus, and their successors Chrysippus, 

 Carneades, and the rest. There was only this difference 

 between them, the former were mercenary vagabonds, tra 

 velling about to different states, making a show of their 

 wisdom and requiring pay ; the latter, more dignified and 

 noble, in possession of fixed habitations, opening schools, 

 and teaching philosophy gratuitously. Both, however 

 (though differing in other respects), were professorial, and 

 reduced every subject to controversy, establishing and de 

 fending certain sects and dogmas of philosophy : so that 

 their doctrines were nearly (what Dionysius not unaptly 

 objected to Plato) &quot; the talk of idle old men to ignorant 

 youths.&quot; But the more ancient Greeks, as Empedocles, 

 Anaxagoras, Leucippus,Democritus,Parmenides, Heraclittis, 

 Xenophanes, Philolaus, and the rest (for I omit Pythagoras 

 as being superstitious), did not (that we are aware) open 

 schools; but betook themselves to the investigation of 

 truth with greater silence, and with more severity and 



* See Ax. 61 . towards the end. This subject extends to Ax, 78. 



