BOOK I.] APHORISMS. S29 



our only hope is in the regeneration of the sciences, by w^uhrlv 

 raising them on the foundation of experience and building them 

 anew, which I think none can venture to affirm to have been 

 already done or even thought of. 



XCVIII. The foundations of experience (our sole resource) 

 have hitherto failed completely or have been very weak ; nor has 

 a store and collection of particular facts, capable of informing 

 the mind or in any way satisfactory, been either sought after or 

 amassed. On the contrary, learned, but idle and indolent, men 

 have received some mere reports of experience, traditions as it 

 were of dreams, as establishing or confirming their philosophy, 

 and have not hesitated to allow them the weight of legitimate 

 evidence. So that a system has been pursued in philosophy 

 with regard to experience resembling that of a kingdom or state 

 which would direct its councils and affairs according to the 

 gossip of city and street politicians, instead of the letters and 

 reports of ambassadors and messengers worthy of credit. !No- 

 thing is rightly inquired into, or verified, noted, weighed, or 

 measured, in natural history ; indefinite and vague observation 

 produces fallacious and uncertain information. If this appear 

 strange, or our complaint somewhat too unjust (because Aris 

 totle himself, so distinguished a man and supported by the 

 wealth of so great a king, has completed an accurate history of 

 animals, to which others with greater diligence but less noise 

 have made considerable additions, and others again have com 

 posed copious histories and notices of plants, metals, and fossils), 

 it will arise from a want of sufficiently attending to and compre 

 hending our present observations ; for a natural history com 

 piled on its own account, and one collected for the mind s infor 

 mation as a foundation for philosophy, are two different things. 

 They differ in several respects, but principally in this, the for 

 mer contains only the varieties of natural species without the 

 experiments of mechanical arts ; for as in ordinary life every 

 person s disposition, and the concealed feelings of the mind and 

 passions are most drawn out when they are disturbed, so the 

 secrets of nature betray themselves more readily when tormented 

 by art than when left to their own course. We must begin, 

 therefore, to entertain hopes of natural philosophy then only, 

 when we have a better compilation of natural history, its real 

 basis and support. 



XCIX. Again, even in the abundance of mechanical experi 

 ments, 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 



