XXV111 PREFACE. 



his great Installation (and so considerable a part 

 of it, that the name of the whole is given to 

 it) is his Novum Organum Scientiarum, written 

 by himself in the Latin tongue, and printed also 

 most beautifully and correctly in folio, at Lon 

 don, (b) This work he dedicated to King James, 

 with the following excuse ; that, if he had stolen 

 any time, for the composure of it, from his ma 

 jesty s other affairs, he had made some sort of 

 restitution, by doing honour to his name and his 

 reign. The king wrote to him, then chancellor, a 

 letter of thanks, with his own hand, (c) Part of the 

 dedication is then stated. 



This Novum Organum containeth in it, instruc 

 tions concerning a better and more perfect use of 

 reason in our inquisitions after things. And there 

 fore the second title which he gave it was, directions 

 concerning interpretations of nature. And, by this 

 art he designed a logic more useful than the vulgar, 

 and an Organon apter to help the intellectual 

 powers, than that of Aristotle. For he proposed 

 here, not so much the invention of arguments, as of 

 arts ; and in demonstration, he used induction, more 

 than contentious syllogism ; and in his induction, he 

 did not straightway proceed from a few particular 

 sensible notions, to the most general of all ; but 

 raised axioms by degrees, designing the most general 



(6) 1620. and in 2d. part Res. part of this Orga. is publ. in an 

 Engl. Version. 



(c) Dated Octob. 16. 1620. See Collect, of Letters in Resusc. 

 p. 83. 



