3 4 4 BACON 



the impressions and changes of the air, the bringing into our 

 power the management of celestial influences, the divination of 

 future events, the representation of distant objects, the revela- 

 tion of hidden objects, and the like. One would not be very 

 wrong in observing with regard to such pretenders, that there 

 is as much difference in philosophy, between their absurdity 

 and real science, as there is in history between the exploits of 

 Csesar or Alexander, and those of Amadis de Gaul and Arthur 

 of Britain. For those illustrious generals are found to have 

 actually performed greater exploits than such fictitious heroes 

 are even pretended to have accomplished, by the means, how- 

 ever, of real action, and not by any fabulous and portentous 

 power. Yet it is not right to suffer our belief in true history to 

 be diminished, because it is sometimes injured and violated by 

 fables. In the mean time we cannot wonder that great preju- 

 dice has been excited against any new propositions (especially 

 when coupled with any mention of effects to be produced), by 

 the conduct of impostors who have made a similar attempt ; for 

 their extreme absurdity, and the disgust occasioned by it, have 

 even to this day overpowered every spirited attempt of the kind. 



88. Want of energy, and the littleness and futility of the tasks 

 that human industry has undertaken, have produced much 

 greater injury to the sciences : and yet (to make it still worse) 

 that very want of energy manifests itself to conjunction with 

 arrogance and disdain. 



For, in the first place, one excuse, now from its repetition 

 become familiar, is to be observed in every art, namely, that its 

 promoters convert the weakness of the art itself into a calumny 

 upon nature : and whatever it in their hands fails to effect, they 

 pronounce to be physically impossible. But how can the art 

 ever be condemned whilst it acts as judge in its own cause? 

 Even the present system of philosophy cherishes in its bosom 

 certain positions or dogmas, which (it will be found on diligent 

 inquiry) are calculated to produce a full conviction that no diffi- 

 cult, commanding, and powerful operation upon nature ought 

 to be anticipated through the means of art ; we instanced e 

 above the alleged different quality of heat in the sun and fire, 

 and composition and mixture. Upon an accurate observation 

 the whole tendency of such positions is wilfully to circumscribe 

 man's power, and to produce a despair of the means of inven- 

 tion and contrivance, which would not only confound the 

 promises of hope, but cut the very springs and sinews of indus- 

 try, and throw aside even the chances of experience. The only 

 object of such philosophers is to acquire the reputation of per- 

 fection for their own art, and they are anxious to obtain the 

 most silly and abandoned renown, by causing a belief that 

 whatever has not yet been invented and understood can never 



