340 BACON 



Another, perhaps, calls in logic to assist him in discovery, 

 which bears only a nominal relation to his purpose. For the 

 discoveries of logic are not discoveries of principles and lead- 

 ing axioms, but only of what appears to accord with them. And 

 when men become curious and importunate, and give trouble, 

 interrupting her about her proofs, and the discovery of princi- 

 ples or first axioms, she puts them off with her usual answer, 

 referring them to faith, and ordering them to swear allegiance 

 to each art in its own department. 



There remains but mere experience, which, when it offers it- 

 self, is called chance ; when it is sought after, experiment.^ But 

 this kind of experience is nothing but a loose fagot ; and mere 

 groping in the dark, as men at night try all means of discover- 

 ing the right road, whilst it would be better and more prudent 

 either to wait for day, or procure a light, and then proceed. On 

 the contrary, the real order of experience begins by setting up 

 a light, and then shows the road by it, commencing with a reg- 

 ulated and digested, not a misplaced and vague course of ex- 

 periment, and thence deducing axioms, and from those axioms 

 new experiments; for not even the divine word proceeded to 

 operate on the general mass of things without due order. 



Let men, therefore, cease to wonder if the whole course of 

 science be not run, when all have wandered from the path ; quit- 

 ting it entirely, and deserting experience, or involving them- 

 selves in its mazes, and wandering about, whilst a regularly 

 combined system would lead them in a sure track through its 

 wilds to the open day of axioms. 



83. The evil, however, has been wonderfully increased by an 

 opinion, or inveterate conceit, which is both vainglorious and 

 prejudicial, namely, that the dignity of the human mind is 

 lowered by long and frequent intercourse with experiments and 

 particulars, which are the objects of sense, and confined to mat- 

 ter; especially since such matters generally require labor in 

 investigation, are mean subjects for meditation, harsh in dis- 

 course, unproductive in practice, infinite in number, and deli- 

 cate in their subtilty. Hence we have seen the true path not 

 only deserted, but intercepted and blocked up, experience be- 

 ing rejected with disgust, and not merely neglected or improp- 

 erly applied. 



84. Again, the reverence for antiquity, and the authority of 

 men who have been esteemed great in philosophy, and general 

 unanimity, have retarded men from advancing in science, and 

 almost enchanted them. As to unanimity, we have spoken of 

 it above. 



The opinion which men cherish of antiquity is altogether 

 idle and scarcely affords with the term. For the old age and 

 increasing years of the world should in reality be considered as 



