o98 HOVUM. ORGANUM. [BOOK r - 



iarily have recourse to particular instances, and their regular series 

 and arrangement, as we shall mention when we come to the mode 

 and scheme of determining notions and axioms. 



LX. The idols imposed upon the understanding by words are 

 of two kinds. They are either the names of things which have 

 no existence (for as some objects are from inattention left without 

 a name, so names are formed by fanciful imaginations which arc 

 without an object), or they are the names of actual objects, but 

 confused, badly defined, and hastily and irregularly abstracted 

 from things. Fortune, i\\e primum mobile, the planetary orbits,* 

 the element of fire, and the like fictions, which owe their birth 

 to futile and false theories, are instances of the first kind. And 

 this species of idols is removed with greater facility, because it 

 can be exterminated by the constant refutation or the desuetude 

 of the theories themselves. The others, which are created by 

 vicious and unskilful abstraction, are intricate and deeply rooted. 

 Take some word for instance, as moist, and let us examine how 

 far the different significations of this word are consistent. It 

 will be found that the word moist is nothing but a confused sign 

 of different actions admitted of no settled and defined uniformity. 

 For it means that which easily diffuses itself over another body ; 

 that which is indeterminable and cannot be brought to a consis 

 tency; that which yields easily in every direction ; that which 

 is easily divided and dispersed ; that which is easily united and 

 collected; that which easily flows and is put in motion ; that 

 which easily adheres to, and wets another body ; that which is 

 easily reduced to a liquid state though previously solid. When, 

 therefore, you come to predicate or impose this name, in one 

 sense flame is moist, in another air is not moist, in another fine 

 powder is moist, in another glass is moist ; so that it is quite 



simpler terms than the object which is sought to be defined ; now this, 

 in the case of primordial notions and objects ot sense, is impossible ; 

 therefore we are obliged to rest satisfied with the mere names of our 

 perceptions. Ed. 



z The ancients supposed the planets to describe an exact circle round 

 the south. As observations increased and fac:s were disclosed, which 

 were irreconcileable with this supposition, tb.e earth was removed from 

 the centre to some other point in the circle, and the planets were sup 

 posed to revolve in a smaller circle (epicycle) round an imaginary point, 

 which in its turn described a circle of which the earth vras the centre. 

 In proportion as observation elicited fresh iacts, contradictory to 

 these representations, other epicycles and eccentrics were added, involv 

 ing additional confusion. Though Kepler had swept away all theso 

 complicated theories in the preceding century, by the demonstration of 

 bis three laws, which established the elliptical course of the planets, 

 Bacon regarded him and Copernicus in the same light as Ptolemy au 1 

 Xenophanes. Ed. 



