NOVUM ORGANUM 349 



confusion or noise, and the matter is achieved before men either 

 think or perceive that it is commenced. Nor should we neglect 

 to mention the prophecy of Daniel, of the last days of the world, 

 " Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be in- 

 creased," / thus plainly hinting and suggesting that fate (which 

 is Providence) would cause the complete circuit of the globe 

 (now accomplished, or at least going forward by means of so 

 many distant voyages), and the increase of learning to happen 

 at the same epoch. 



94. We will next give a most potent reason for hope deduced 

 from the errors of the past, and the ways still unattempted; 

 for well was an ill-governed state thus reproved, " That .which is 

 worst with regard to the past should appear most consolatory 

 for the future; for if you had done all that your duty com- 

 manded, and your affairs proceeded no better, you could not 

 even hope for their improvement; but since their present 

 unhappy situation is not owing to the force of circumstances, 

 but to your own errors, you have reason to hope that by ban- 

 ishing or correcting the latter you can produce a great change 

 for the better in the former." So if men had, during the many 

 years that have elapsed, adhered to the right way of discovering 

 and cultivating the sciences without being able to advance, it 

 would be assuredly bold and presumptuous to imagine it pos- 

 sible to improve ; but if they have mistaken the way and wasted 

 their labor on improper objects, it follows that the difficulty 

 does not arise from things themselves, which are not in our 

 power, but from the human understanding, its practice and 

 application, which is susceptible of remedy and correction. Our 

 best plan, therefore, is to expose these errors ; for in proportion 

 as they impeded the past, so do they afford reason to hope for 

 the future. And although we have touched upon them above, 

 yet we think it right to give a brief, bare, and simple enumera- 

 tion of them in this place. 



95. Those who have treated of the sciences have been either 

 empirics or dogmatical. The former like ants only heap up and 

 use their store, the latter like spiders spin out their own webs. 

 The bee, a mean between both, extracts matter from the flowers 

 of the garden and the field, but works and fashions it by its own 

 efforts. The true labor of philosophy resembles hers, for it 

 neither relies entirely nor principally on the powers of the mind, 

 nor yet lays up in the memory the matter afforded by the ex- 

 periments of natural history and mechanics in its raw state, but 

 changes and works it in the understanding. We have good 

 reason, therefore, to derive hope from a closer and purer alli- 

 ance of these faculties (the experimental and rational) than has 

 yet been attempted. 



96. Natural philosophy is not yet to be found unadulterated, 



