410 KUVUM ORGANUM. [BOOK I. 



effects. Hence the external signs derived from the origin and 

 birthplace of our present philosophy are not favourable, 



LXXII. Nor are those much better which can be deduced 

 from the character of the time and age, than the former from 

 that of the country and nation ; for in that age the knowledge 

 both of time and of the world was confined and meagre, which 

 is one of the worst evils for those who rely entirely on expe 

 rience, they had not a thousand years of history worthy of 

 that name, but mere fables and ancient traditions ; they were 

 acquainted with but a small portion of the regions and countries 

 of the world, for they indiscriminately called all nations situated 

 far towards the north Scythians, all those to the west Celts; 

 they knew nothing of Africa but the nearest part of Ethiopia, or 

 of Asia beyond the Ganges, and had not even heard any sure 

 and clear tradition of the regions of the New World. Besides, a 

 vast number of climates and zones, in which innumerable nations 

 live and breathe, were pronounced by them to be uninhabitable ; 

 nay, the travels of Democritus, Plato, and Pythagoras, which 

 were not extensive, but rather mere excursions from home, were 

 considered as something vast. But in our times many parts of 

 the New World, and every extremity of the Old are well known, 

 and the mass of experiments has been infinitely increased ; where 

 fore, if external signs were to be taken from the time of the 

 nativity or procreation (as in astrology), nothing extraordinary 

 could be predicted of these early systems of philosophy. 



LXXIII. Of all si^ns there is none more certain or worthy 

 than that of the fruits produced, for the fruits and effects are 

 the sureties and vouchers, as it were, for the truth of philosophy. 

 Now, from the systems of the Greeks and their subordinate 

 divisions in particular branches of the sciences during so long a 

 period, scarcely one single experiment can be culled that has a 

 tendency to elevate or assist mankind, and can be fairly set 

 down to the speculations and doctrines of their philosophy. 

 Celsus candidly and wisely confesses as much, when he observes 

 that experiments were first discovered in medicine, and that 

 men aftenvards built their philosophical systems upon them, and 

 searched for and assigned causes, instead of the inverse method 

 of discovering and deriving experiments from philosophy and 

 the knowledge of causes ; it is not, therefore, wonderful that the 

 Egyptians (who bestowed divinity and sacred honours on the 

 authors of new inventions) should have consecrated more images 

 of brutes than of men, for the brutes by their natural instinct 

 made many discoveries, whilst men derived but few from discus 

 sion and the conclusions of reason. 



The industry of the alchemists has produced some effect, by 

 chance, however, and casualty, or from varying their experi 

 ments (as mechanics also do), and not from any regular art of 



