NOVUM ORGANUM 335 



imposture; for which reason, in the same manner as we are 

 cautioned by religion to show our faith by our works, we may 

 very properly apply the principle to philosophy, and judge of it 

 by its works, accounting that to be futile which is unproductive, 

 and still more so if, instead of grapes and olives, it yield but the 

 thistle and thorns of dispute and contention. 



74. Other signs may be selected from the increase and prog- 

 ress of particular systems of philosophy and the sciences ; for 

 those which are founded on nature grow and increase, whilst 

 those which are founded on opinion change and increase not. 

 If, therefore, the theories we have mentioned were not like 

 plants, torn up by the roots, but grew in the womb of nature, 

 and were nourished by her, that which for the last two thousand 

 years has taken place would never have happened, namely, 

 that the sciences still continue in their beaten track, and nearly 

 stationary, without having received any important increase, 

 nay, having on the contrary rather bloomed under the hands of 

 their first author, and then faded away. But we see that the 

 case is reversed in the mechanical arts, which are founded on 

 nature and the light of experience, for they (as long as they 

 are popular) seem full of life, and uninterruptedly thrive and 

 grow, being at first rude, then convenient, lastly polished, and 

 perpetually improved. 



75. There is yet another sign (if such it may be termed, being 

 rather an evidence, and one of the strongest nature), namely, 

 the actual confession of those very authorities whom men now 

 follow ; for even they who decide on things so daringly, yet at 

 times, when they reflect, betake themselves to complaints about 

 the subtilty of nature, the obscurity of things, and the weakness 

 of man's wit. If they would merely do this, they might per- 

 haps deter those who are of a timid disposition from further 

 inquiry, but would excite and stimulate those of a more active 

 and confident turn to further advances. They are not, how- 

 ever, satisfied with confessing so much of themselves, but con- 

 sider everything which has been either unknown or unattempt- 

 ed by themselves or their teachers, as beyond the limits of 

 possibility, and thus, with most consummate pride and envy, 

 convert the defects of their own discoveries into a calumny on 

 nature and a source of despair to every one else. Hence arose 

 the New Academy, which openly professed scepticism, and 

 consigned mankind to eternal darkness ; hence the notion that 

 forms, or the true differences of things (which are in fact the 

 laws of simple action), are beyond man's reach, and cannot pos- 

 sibly be discovered; hence those notions in the active and 

 operative branches, that the heat of the sun and of fire are 

 totally different, so as to prevent men from supposing that they 

 can elicit or form, by means of fire, anything similar to the 



