BACON 



27. Anticipations are sufficiently powerful in producing 

 unanimity, for if men were all to become even uniformly mad, 

 they might agree tolerably well with each other. 



28. Anticipations, again, will be assented to much more read- 

 ily than interpretations, because being deduced from a few 

 instances, and these principally of familiar occurrence, they im- 

 mediately hit the understanding and satisfy the imagination; 

 whilst on the contrary interpretations, being deduced from 

 various subjects, and these widely dispersed, cannot suddenly 

 strike the understanding, so that in common estimation they 

 must appear difficult and discordant, and almost like the mys- 

 teries of faith. 



29. In sciences founded on opinions and dogmas, it is right 

 to make use of anticipations and logic if you wish to force as- 

 sent rather than things. 



30. If all the capacities of all ages should unite and combine 

 and transmit their labors, no great progress will be made in 

 learning by anticipations, because the radical errors, and those 

 which occur in the first process of the mind, are not cured by 

 the excellence of subsequent means and remedies. 



31. It is in vain to expect any great progress in the sciences 

 by the superinducing or engrafting new matters upon old. An 

 instauration must be made from the very foundations, if we do 

 not wish to revolve forever in a circle, making only some slight 

 and contemptible progress. 



32. The ancient authors and all others are left in undisputed 

 possession of their honors ; for we enter into no comparison of 

 capacity or talent, but of method, and assume the part of a 

 guide rather than of a critic. 



33. To speak plainly, no correct judgment can be formed 

 either of our method or its discoveries by those anticipations 

 which are now in common use ; for it is not to be required of 

 us to submit ourselves to the judgment of the very method 

 we ourselves arraign. 



34. Nor is it an easy matter to deliver and explain our senti- 

 ments ; for those things which are in themselves new can yet 

 be only understood from some analogy to what is old. 



35. Alexander Borgia said of the expedition of the French 

 into Italy that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up 

 their lodgings, and not with weapons to force their passage. 

 Even so do we wish our philosophy to make its way quietly 

 into those minds that are fit for it, and of good capacity ; for 

 we have no need of contention where we differ in first prin- 

 ciples, and in our very notions, and even in our forms of demon- 

 stration. 



36. We have but one simple method of delivering our senti- 

 ments, namely, we must bring men to particulars and their 



