438 KOVUM ORGANUM. [EOOK I. 



CXVII. And, as we pretend not to found a sect, BO do we 

 neither offer nor promise particular effects ; which may occasion 

 some to object to us, that since we so often speak of effects, and 

 consider everything in its relation to that end, we ought also to 

 give some earnest of producing them. Our course and method, 

 however (as we have often said, and again repeat), is such as not 

 to deduce effects from effects, nor experiments from experiments 

 (as the empirics do), but in our capacity of legitimate interpreters 

 of nature, to deduce causes and axioms from effects and ex 

 periments ; and new effects and experiments from those causes 

 and axioms. 



And although any one of moderate intelligence and ability 

 will observe the indications and sketches of many noble effects 

 in our tables of inventions (which form the fourth part of the 

 Instauration), and also in the examples of particular instances 

 cited in the second part, as well as in our observations on history 

 (which is the subject of the third part); yet we candidly confess 

 that our present natural history, whether compiled from book a 

 or our own inquiries, is not sufficiently copious and well ascer 

 tained to satisfy, or even assist, a proper interpretation. 



If, therefore, there be any one who is more disposed and pre 

 pared for mechanical art, and ingenious in discovering effects, 

 than in the mere management of experiment, we allow him to 

 employ his industry in gathering many of the fruits of ou* 

 history and tables in this way, and applying them to effects, re 

 ceiving them as interest till he can obtain the principal. Fo 

 our own part, having a greater object in view, we condemn all 

 hasty and premature rest in such pursuits as we would Atalanta t* 

 apple (to use a common allusion of ours) ; for we are not child 

 ishly ambitious of golden fruit, but use all our efforts to mak&amp;lt; 

 the course of art outstrip nature, and we hasten not to reap moss 

 or the green blade, but wait for a ripe harvest. 



CX VIII. There will be some, without doubt, who, on a perusa . 

 of our history and tables of invention, will meet with some un 

 certainty, or perhaps fallacy, in the experiments themselves, and 

 will thence perhaps imagine that our discoveries are built on 

 false foundations and principles. There is, however, really 

 nothing in this, since it must needs happen in beginnings.* 1 For 



* Bacon s apology is sound, and completely answers those German 

 and French critics, who have refused him a niche in the philoso 

 phical pantheon. One German commentator, too modest to reveal hia 

 name, accuses Bacon of ignorance of the calculus, though, in his day, 

 Wallis had not yet stumbled upon the laws of continuous fractions ; while 

 Count de Maistre, in a coarse attack upon his genius, expresses hii 

 astonishment at finding Bacon unacquainted with discoveries which 

 were not heard of till a century after bis death. Ed. 



