NOVUM ORGANUM 



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or down of birds, but certainly would never have had an idea of 

 its being spun by a small worm, in so copious a manner, and 

 renewed annually. But if anyone had ventured to suggest the 

 silkworm, he would have been laughed at as if dreaming of some 

 new manufacture from spiders. 



So again, if before the discovery of the compass, any one had 

 said, That an instrument had been invented, by which the quar- 

 ters and points of the heavens could be exactly taken and dis- 

 tinguished, men would have entered into disquisitions on the 

 refinement of astronomical instruments, and the like, from the 

 excitement of their imaginations ; but the thought of anything 

 being discovered, which, not being a celestial body, but a mere 

 mineral or metallic substance, should yet in its motion agree 

 with that of such bodies, would have appeared absolutely in- 

 credible. Yet were these facts, and the like (unknown for so 

 many ages) not discovered at last either by philosophy or rea- 

 soning, but by chance and opportunity ; and (as we have ob- 

 served), they are of a nature most heterogeneous, and remote 

 from what was hitherto known, so that no previous knowledge 

 could lead to them. 



We may, therefore, well hope that many excellent and useful 

 matters are yet treasured up in the bosom of nature, bearing no 

 relation or analogy to our actual discoveries, but out of the com- 

 mon track of our imagination, and still undiscovered, and which 

 will doubtless be brought to light in the course and lapse of 

 years, as the others have been before them ; but in the way we 

 now point out, they may rapidly and at once be both repre- 

 sented and anticipated. 



no. There are, moreover, some inventions which render it 

 probable that men may pass and hurry over the most noble dis- 

 coveries which lie immediately before him. For however the 

 discovery of gunpowder, silk, the compass, sugar, paper, or the 

 like, may appear to depend on peculiar properties of things and 

 nature, printing at least involves no contrivance which is not 

 clear and almost obvious. But from want of observing that 

 although the arrangement of the types of letters required more 

 trouble than writing with the hand, yet these types once ar- 

 ranged serve for innumerable impressions, whilst manuscript 

 only affords one copy ; and again, from want of observing that 

 ink might be thickened so as to stain without running (which 

 was necessary, seeing the letters face upwards, and the impres- 

 sion is made from above), this most beautiful invention (which 

 assists so materially the propagation of learning) remained un- 

 known for so many ages. 



The human mind is often so awkward and ill-rcerulated in the 

 career of invention that it is at first diffident, and then despises 

 itself. For it appears at first incredible that any such discovery 



