DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORK 25 



tions of the senses, but desire the senses to judge only of 

 experiments, and experiments to judge of things: on which 

 foundation, we hope to be patrons of the senses, and inter 

 preters of their oracles. And thus we mean to procure the 

 things relating to the light of nature, and the setting it up 

 in the mind; which might well suffice, if the mind were as 

 white paper. But since the minds of men are so strangely 

 disposed, as not to receive the true images of things, it is 

 necessary also that a remedy be found for this evil. 



The idols, or false notions, which possess the mind, are 

 either acquired or innate. The acquired arise either from 

 the opinions or sects of philosophers, or from preposterous 

 laws of demonstration; but the innate cleave to the nature 

 of the understanding, which is found much more prone to 

 error than the senses. For however men may amuse them 

 selves, and admire, or almost adore the mind, it is certain, 

 that like an irregular glass, it alters the rays of things, by 

 its figure and different intersections. 



The two former kinds of idols may be extirpated, though 

 with difficulty; but this third is insuperable. All that can 

 be done, is to point them out, and mark, and convict that, 

 treacherous faculty of the mind; lest when the ancient 

 errors are destroyed, new ones should sprout out from the 

 rankness of the soil: and, on the other hand, to establish 

 this forever, that the understanding can make no judgment 

 but by induction, and the just form thereof. Whence the 

 doctrine of purging the understanding requires three kinds 

 of confutations, to fit it for the investigation of truth, viz. ; 

 the confutation of philosophies, the confutation of demon 

 strations, and the confutation of the natural reason. But 

 when these have been completed, and it has been clearly 

 seen what results are to be expected from the nature of 

 things, and the nature of the human mind, we shall have 

 then furnished a nuptial couch for the mind and the uni 

 verse, the divine goodness being our bridemaid. And let 

 it be the prayer of our Epithalamium, that assistance to man 

 may spring from this union, and a race of discoveries, which 



SCIENCE Vol. 21. 2 



