324 BACON 



57. The contemplation of nature and of bodies in their in- 

 dividual form distracts and weakens the understanding; but 

 the contemplation of nature and of bodies in their general com- 

 position and formation stupefies and relaxes it. We have a 

 good instance of this in the school of Leucippus and Democri- 

 tus compared with others, for they applied themselves so much 

 to particulars as almost to neglect the general structure of 

 things, whilst the others were so astounded whilst gazing on 

 the structure that they did not penetrate the simplicity of nature. 

 These two species of contemplation must, therefore, be inter- 

 changed, and each employed in its turn, in order to render the 

 understanding at once penetrating and capacious, and to avoid 

 the inconveniences we have mentioned, and the idols that result 

 from them. 



58. Let such, therefore, be our precautions in contemplation, 

 that we may ward off and expel the idols of the den, which 

 mostly owe their birth either to some predominant pursuit, or, 

 secondly, to an excess in synthesis and analysis, or, thirdly, to 

 a party zeal in favor of certain ages, or, fourthly, to the extent 

 or narrowness of the subject. In general, he who contemplates 

 nature should suspect whatever particularly takes and fixes his 

 understanding, and should use so much the more caution to 

 preserve it equable and unprejudiced. 



59. The idols of the market are the most troublesome of all, 

 those namely which have entwined themselves round the un- 

 derstanding from the associations of words and names. For 

 men imagine that their reason governs words, whilst, in fact, 

 words react upon the understanding; and this has rendered 

 philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Words 

 are generally formed in a popular sense, and define things by 

 those broad lines which are most obvious to the vulgar mind ; 

 but when a more acute understanding, or more diligent obser- 

 vation is anxious to vary those lines, and to adapt them more 

 accurately to nature, words oppose it. Hence the great and 

 solemn disputes of learned men often terminate in controversies 

 about words and names, in regard to which it would be better 

 (imitating the caution of mathematicians) to proceed more ad- 

 visedly in the first instance, and to bring such disputes to a 

 regular issue by definitions. Such definitions, however, can- 

 not remedy the evil in natural and material objects, because 

 they consist themselves of words, and these words produce oth- 

 ers ; so that we must necessarily have recourse to particular in- 

 stances, and their regular series and arrangement, as we shall 

 mention when we come to the mode and scheme of determining 

 notions and axioms. 



60. The idols imposed upon the understanding by words are 

 of two kinds. They are either the names of things which have 



