106 



TRUE HINTS ON THE INTERPRETATION 

 OF NATURE. 



The First Part of this Tract forms the Preface to the 

 Novum Organum, Vol. IX. p. 185 190, translated by 

 Mr. Wood, Vol. XIV. p. 2730. 



OUTLINE AND ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND PART OF THE 

 INSTAURATION. 



KEEPING then in view our plan, we shall exhibit the whole 

 subject perspicuously, and with orderly distribution of the 

 parts. Wherefore let us now unfold the design and ar 

 rangement of this second part. We devote this part to the 

 doctrine of a better and more perfect use of reason than 

 hath heretofore been known or promulgated to men, with 

 purpose (as far as the terms of this mortal state permit) to 

 aggrandize and enlarge the human intellect with power to 

 conquer and interpret the mystery of nature. To the inter 

 pretation itself we have dedicated three books, the third, the 

 fourth, and the fifth ; for the sixth, which consists of anti 

 cipations drawn from the ordinary use of reason, it is to 

 be taken only as temporary and provisional, and when in 

 time it shall have begun to acquire solidity, and to be ve 

 rified by the methods of legitimate reason, it is shifted, and 

 as it were migrates of itself into the sixth. 



But to this second book is apportioned the intellect 

 itself, its treatment and regulation, and the entire system 

 of preparation and training leading to the right conduct of 

 the understanding. And although the term logic or dia 

 lectics, by reason of the depravations of the art, sounds 

 repulsive in our ears, yet to lead men as it were so far by 

 the hand in their wonted tracks, we acknowledge the art 

 which we profess to be of the nature of logic, so far as logic, 

 (the common logic I mean), supplies aids and constructs de 

 fences for the intellect. Yet ours differs from the received 

 logic, besides other points of opposition, principally in three ; 

 namely, its mode of entering on inquiry, its order of de 

 monstration, and its end and office. It goes deeper to find 



