NOVUM ORGAN UM. Cclxvii 



1. Divisions of the Sciences. 



2. Novum Organum; or, Precepts for the Interpretation 



of Nature. 



3. Phenomena of the Universe ; or, Natural and Experi 



mental History on which to found Philosophy. 



4. Scale of the Understanding. 



5. Precursors or Anticipations of the Second Philosophy. 



6. Sound Philosophy, or Active Science. 



And with respect to each of these parts he explains his 

 intentions. 



As to the first, or THE DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES, Division 

 he, in 1605, had exhibited an outline in the Advancement 

 of Learning, (a) and lived nearly (b) to complete it in the 

 year 1623. (c) In this treatise he describes the cultivated 

 parts of the intellectual world and the desarts;(W) not to 

 measure out regions, as augurs for divination, but as 

 generals to invade for conquest. 



THE NOVUM ORGANUM is a treatise upon the conduct The 

 of the understanding in the systematic discovery of truth, 

 or the art of invention by a New Organ : (e) as, in inquiring 

 into any nature, the hydrophobia, for instance, or the 

 attraction of the magnet, the Novum Organum explains 

 a mode of proceeding by which its nature and laws may 

 with certainty be found. 



It having been Bacon s favourite doctrine, that important 



(a) See vol. viii. See ante, p. cxxxv. 



(6) Not entirely, see the De Aug. vol. ix. p. 83, where his Justitia 

 Universalis is unfinished. 



(c) Vol. viii. (of) Ante, p. cxxi. 



(e) The object of the second part is the doctrine touching a better and 

 more perfect use of reasoning in the investigation of things, and the true 

 helps of the understanding ; that it may by this means be raised, as far as 

 our human and mortal nature will admit, and be enlarged in its powers so 

 as to master the arduous and obscure secrets of nature. 



