80 NOVUM ORGANUM 



XCIX. Again, even in the abundance of mechanical 

 experiments, there is a very great scarcity of those which 

 best inform and assist the understanding. For the mechanic, 

 little solicitous about the investigation of truth, neither 

 directs his attention, nor applies his hand to anything that 

 is not of service to his business. But our hope of further 

 progress in the sciences will then only be well founded, 

 when numerous experiments shall be received and collected 

 into natural history, which, though of no use in themselves, 

 assist materially in the discovery of causes and axioms; 

 which experiments we have termed enlightening, to distin 

 guish them from those which are profitable. They possess 

 this wonderful property and nature, that they never deceive 

 or fail you; for being used only to discover the natural 

 cause of some object, whatever be the result, they equally 

 satisfy your aim by deciding the question. 



C. We must not only search for, and procure a greater 

 number of experiments, but also introduce a completely 

 different method, order, and progress of continuing and 

 promoting experience. For vague and arbitrary experience 

 is (as we have observed), mere groping in the dark, and 

 rather astonishes than instructs. But when experience 

 shall proceed regularly and uninterruptedly by a deter 

 mined rule, we may entertain better hopes of the sciences. 



CI. But after having collected and prepared an abun 

 dance and store of natural history, and of the experience 

 required for the operations of the understanding or phi 

 losophy, still the understanding is as incapable of acting 

 on such materials of itself, with the aid of memory alone, 

 as any person would be of retaining and achieving, by 

 memory, the computation of an almanac. Yet meditation 

 has hitherto done more for discovery than writing, and no 



