NOVUM ORGANUM 289 



instances; or by guarding it from false forms and causes, 

 as in those of the cross and of divorce. With regard to 

 practice, they either point it out, or measure, or elevate 

 it. They point it out, either by showing where we must 

 commence in order not to repeat the labors of others, as in 

 the instances of power; or by inducing us to aspire to that 

 which may be possible, as in the suggesting instances; the 

 four mathematical instances measure it. The generally use 

 ful and the magical elevate it. 



Again, out of these twenty-seven instances, some must 

 be collected immediately, without waiting for a particular 

 investigation of properties. Such are the similar, singular, 

 deviating, and bordering instances, those of power, and of 

 the gate, and suggesting, generally useful, and magical in 

 stances; for these either assist and cure the understanding 

 and senses, or furnish our general practice. The remainder 

 are to be collected when we finish our synoptical tables for 

 the work of the interpreter, upon any particular nature; 

 for these instances, honored and gifted with such preroga 

 tives, are like the soul amid the vulgar crowd of instances, 

 and (as we from the first observed) a few of them are worth 

 a multitude of the others. When, therefore, we are forming 

 our tables they must be searched out with the greatest zeal, 

 and placed in the table. And, since mention must be made 

 of them in what follows, a treatise upon their nature has 

 necessarily been prefixed. We must next, however, pro 

 ceed to the supports and corrections of induction, and 

 thence to concretes, the latent process, and latent confor 

 mations, and the other matters, which we have enumerated 

 in their order in the twenty-first aphorism, in order that, 

 \ike good and faithful guardians, we may yield up their 

 fortune to mankind upon the emancipation and majority 



