336 BACON 



operations of nature ; and again, that composition only is the 

 work of man and mixture of nature, so as to prevent men from 

 expecting the generation or transformation of natural bodies 

 by art. Men will, therefore, easily allow themselves to be per- 

 suaded by this sign not to engage their fortunes and labor in 

 speculations, which are not only desperate, but actually devoted 

 to desperation. 



76. Nor should we omit the sign afforded by the great dis- 

 sension formerly prevalent among philosophers, and the variety 

 of schools, which sufficiently show that the way was not well 

 prepared that leads from the senses to the understanding, since 

 the same groundwork of philosophy (namely, the nature of 

 things), was torn and divided into such widely differing and 

 multifarious errors. And although in these days the dissensions 

 and differences of opinions with regard to first principles and 

 entire systems are nearly extinct, yet there remain innumerable 

 questions and controversies with regard to particular branches 

 of philosophy. So that it is manifest that there is nothing sure 

 or sound either in the systems themselves or in the methods of 

 demonstration. 



77. With regard to the supposition that there is a general 

 unanimity as to the philosophy of Aristotle, because the other 

 systems of the ancients ceased and became obsolete on its pro- 

 mulgation, and nothing better has been since discovered; 

 whence it appears that it is so well determined and founded, as 

 to have united the suffrages of both ages ; we will observe 

 1st. That the notion of other ancient systems having ceased 

 after the publication of the works of Aristotle is false, for the 

 works of the ancient philosophers subsisted long after that 

 event, even to the time of Cicero, and the subsequent ages. 

 But at a later period, when human learning had, as it were, been 

 wrecked in the inundation of barbarians into the Roman em- 

 pire, then the systems of Aristotle and Plato were preserved in 

 the waves of ages, like planks of a lighter and less solid nature. 

 2d. The notion of unanimity, on a clear inspection, is found to 

 be fallacious. For true unanimity is that which proceeds from 

 a free judgment, arriving at the same conclusion, after an in- 

 vestigation of the fact. Now, by far the greater number of 

 those who have assented to the philosophy of Aristotle, have 

 bound themselves down to it from prejudice and the authority 

 of others, so that it is rather obsequiousness and concurrence 

 than unanimity. But even if it were real and extensive unanim- 

 ity, so far from being esteemed a true and solid confirmation, 

 it should even lead to a violent presumption to the contrary. 

 For there is no worse augury in intellectual matters than that 

 derived from unanimity, with the exception of divinity and 

 politics, where suffrages are allowed to decide. For nothing 



