XOVUM ORGANUM. 57 



the Christian religion had been acknowledged and arrived 

 at maturity, by far the best wits were busied upon theology, 

 where the highest rewards offered themselves, and every 

 species of assistance was abundantly supplied, and the 

 study of which was the principal occupation of the western 

 European nations during the third epoch ; the rather be 

 cause literature flourished about the very time when con 

 troversies concerning religion first began to bud forth. 

 2. In the preceding ages, during the second epoch (that of 

 the Romans), philosophical meditation and labour was 

 chiefly occupied and wasted in moral philosophy (the the 

 ology of the heathens) : besides the greatest minds in these 

 times applied themselves to civil affairs, on account of the 

 magnitude of the Roman empire, which required the labour 

 of many. 3. The age during which natural philosophy 

 appeared principally to flourish among the Greeks was but a 

 short period, since in the more ancient times the seven sages 

 (with the exception of Thates) applied themselves to moral 

 philosophy and politics, and at a later period after Socrates 

 had brought down philosophy from heaven to earth, moral 

 philosophy became more prevalent, and diverted men s at 

 tention from natural. Nay, the very period during which 

 physical inquiries flourished, was corrupted and rendered 

 useless by contradictions and the ambition of new opinions. 

 Since, therefore, during these three epochs, natural philo 

 sophy has been materially neglected or impeded, it is not 

 at all surprising that men should have made but little pro 

 gress in it, seeing they were attending to an entirely dif 

 ferent matter. 



80. Add to this that natural philosophy, especially of 

 late, has seldom gained exclusive possession of an individual 

 free from all other pursuits, even amongst those who have 

 applied themselves to it, unless there may be an example 

 or two of some monk studying in his cell, or some noble 

 man in his villa. She has rather been made a passage and 

 bridge to other pursuits. 



Thus has this great mother of the sciences been degraded 

 most unworthily to the situation of an handmaid, and made 

 to wait upon medicine or mathematical operations, and to 

 wash the immature minds of youth, and imbue them with 

 a first dye, that they may afterwards be more -ready to re 

 ceive and retain another. In the mean time let no one 

 expect any great progress in the sciences (especially their 

 operative part), unless natural philosophy be applied to 

 particular sciences, and particular sciences again referred 



