NOVUM ORGANUM 61 



of science be not run, when all have wandered from the 

 path; quitting it entirely, and deserting experience, or in 

 volving themselves in its mazes, and wandering about, while 

 a regularly combined system would lead them in a sure track 

 through its wilds to the open day of axioms. 



LXXXIII. The evil, however, has been wonderfully in- 

 creased by an opinion, or inveterate conceit, which is both 

 vainglorious and prejudicial, namely, that the dignity of the 

 human mind is lowered by long and frequent intercourse 

 with experiments and particulars, which are the objects of 

 sense, and confined to matter; especially since such matters 

 generally require labor in investigation, are mean subjects 

 for meditation, harsh in discourse, unproductive in practice, 

 infinite in number, and delicate in their subtilty. Hence 

 we have seen the true path not only deserted, but inter 

 cepted and blocked up, experience being rejected with dis 

 gust, and not merely neglected or improperly applied. 



LXXXIV. Again, the reverence for antiquity, 47 and the 

 authority of men who have been esteemed great in philoso 

 phy, and general unanimity, have retarded men from ad 

 vancing in science, and almost enchanted them. As to 

 unanimity, we have spoken of it above. 



The opinion which men cherish of antiquity is altogether 

 idle, and scarcely accords with the term. For the old age 

 and increasing years of the world should in reality be con 

 sidered as antiquity, and this is rather the character of our 

 own times than of the less advanced age of the world in 

 those of the ancients; for the latter, with respect to our- 



41 The incongruity to which Bacon alludes appears to spring from confound 

 ing two things, which are not only distinct, b ut affect human knowledge in 

 inverse proportion, viz., the experience which terminates with life, with that 

 experience which one century transmits to another. Ed. 



