42 BACON 



impossible to discover the remote and deep parts of any science 

 by standing upon the level of the same science, or without 

 ascending to a higher. 



Another error proceeds from too great a reverence, and a 

 kind of adoration paid to the human understanding; whence 

 men have withdrawn themselves from the contemplation of 

 nature and experience, and sported with their own reason and 

 the fictions of fancy. These intellectualists, though commonly 

 taken for the most sublime and divine philosophers, are cen- 

 sured by Heraclitus, when he says, " Men seek for truth in their 

 own little worlds, and not in the great world without them : "*' 

 and as they disdain to spell, they can never come to read in the 

 volume of God's works; but on the contrary, by continual 

 thought and agitation of wit, they compel their own genius to 

 divine and deliver oracles, whereby they are deservedly deluded. 



Another error is, that men often infect their speculations and 

 doctrines with some particular opinions they happen to be fond 

 of, or the particular sciences whereto thej have most applied, 

 and thence give all other things a tincture that is utterly foreign 

 to them. Thus Plato mixed philosophy with theology ; Aristo- 

 tle with logic ; Proclus with mathematics ; as these arts were a 

 kind of elder and favorite children with them. So the alchemists 

 have made a philosophy from a few experiments of the furnace, 

 and Gilbert another out of the loadstone: in like manner, 

 Cicero, when reviewing the opinions on the nature of the soul, 

 coming to that of a musician, who held the soul was but a 

 harmony, he pleasantly said, " This man has not gone out of his 

 art."Ar But of such authors Aristotle says well : " Those who 

 take in but a few considerations easily decide."/ 



Another error is, an impatience of doubting and a blind hurry 

 of asserting without a mature suspension of judgment. For 

 the two ways of contemplation are like the two ways of action 

 so frequently mentioned by the ancients ; the one plain and easy 

 at first, but in the end impassable ; the other rough and fatiguing 

 m the entrance, but soon after fair and even : so in contempla- 

 tion, if we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts - but if 

 we begin with doubts, and are patient in them, we shall end in 

 certainties. 



Another error lies in the manner of delivering knowledge, 

 which is generally magisterial and peremptory, not ingenuous 

 and open, but suited to gain belief without examination. And 



