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they cannot maintain them to be true), yet when the human 

 mind has once despaired of discovering truth, everything be- 

 gins to languish. Hence men turn aside into pleasant contro- 

 versies and discussions, and into a sort of wandering over 

 subjects rather than sustain any rigorous investigation. But 

 as we observed at first, we are not to deny the authority of the 

 human senses and understanding, although weak, but rather to 

 furnish them with assistance. 



68. We have now treated of each kind of idols, and their 

 qualities, all of which must be abjured and renounced with firm 

 and solemn resolution, and the understanding must be complete- 

 ly freed and cleared of them, so that the access to the kingdom 

 of man, which is founded on the sciences, may resemble that to 

 the kingdom of heaven, where no admission is conceded except 

 to children. 



69. Vicious demonstrations are the muniments and support 

 of idols, and those which we possess in logic, merely subject 

 and enslave the world to human thoughts, and thoughts to 

 words. But demonstrations are in some manner themselves 

 systems of philosophy and science ; for such as they are, and 

 accordingly as they are regularly or improperly established, 

 such will be the resulting systems of philosophy and contem- 

 plation. But those which we employ in the whole process 

 leading from the senses and things to axioms and conclusions, 

 are fallacious and incompetent. This process is fourfold, and 

 the errors are in equal number. In the first place the impres- 

 sions of the senses are erroneous, for they fail and deceive us. 

 We must supply defects by substitutions, and fallacies by their 

 correction. Secondly, notions are improperly abstracted from 

 the senses, and indeterminate and confused when they ought 

 to be the reverse. Thirdly, the induction that is employed is 

 improper, for it determines the principles of sciences by simple 

 enumeration, without adopting exclusions and resolutions, or 

 just separations of nature. Lastly, the usual method of dis- 

 covery and proof, by first establishing the most general prop- 

 ositions, then applying and proving the intermediate axioms 

 according to them, is the parent of error and the calamity of 

 every science. But we will treat more fully of that which we 

 now slightly touch upon, when we come to lay down the true 

 way of interpreting nature, after having gone through the 

 above expiatory process and purification of the mind. 



70. But experience is by far the best demonstration, pro- 

 vided it adhere to the experiment actually made, for if that ex- 

 periment be transferred to other subjects apparently similar, 

 unless with proper and methodical caution it becomes fal- 

 lacious. The present method of experiment is blind and 

 stupid ; hence men wandering and roaming without any deter- 



