NOVUM ORGANUM 359 



ceiving them as interest till he can obtain the principal. For 

 our own part, having a greater object in view, we condemn all 

 hasty and premature rest in such pursuits as we would Ata- 

 lanta's apple (to use a common allusion of ours) ; for we are 

 not childishly ambitious of golden fruit, but use all our efforts 

 to make the course of art outstrip nature, and we hasten not to 

 reap moss or the green blade, but wait for a ripe harvest. 



118. There will be some, without doubt, who, on a perusal 

 of our history and tables of invention, will meet with some un- 

 certainty, or perhaps fallacy, in the experiments themselves, and 

 will thence perhaps imagine that our discoveries are built on 

 false foundations and principles. There is, however, really 

 nothing in this, since it must needs happen in beginnings. For 

 it is the same as if in writing or printing one or two letters were 

 wrongly turned or misplaced, which is no great inconvenience 

 to the reader, who can easily by his own eye correct the error ; 

 let men in the same way conclude, that many experiments in 

 natural history may be erroneously believed and admitted, 

 which are easily expunged and rejected afterwards, by the dis- 

 covery of causes and axioms. It is, however, true, that if these 

 errors in natural history and experiments become great, fre- 

 quent, and continued, they cannot be corrected and amended 

 by any dexterity of wit or art. If then, even in our natural his- 

 tory, well examined and compiled with such diligence, strict- 

 ness, and (I might say) reverential scruples, there be now and 

 then something false and erroneous in the details, what must 

 we say of the common natural history, which is so negligent 

 and careless when compared with ours, or of systems of phi- 

 losophy and the sciences, based on such loose soil (or rather 

 quicksand) ? Let none then be alarmed by such observations. 



119. Again, our history and experiments will contain much 

 that is light and common, mean and illiberal, too refined and 

 merely speculative, and, as it were, of no use, and this perhaps 

 may divert and alienate the attention of mankind. 



With regard to what is common ; let men reflect, that they 

 have hitherto been used to do nothing but refer and adapt the 

 causes of things of rare occurrence to those of things which 

 more frequently happen, without any investigation of the 

 causes of the latter, taking them for granted and admitted. 



Hence, they do not inquire into the causes of gravity, the 

 rotation of the heavenly bodies, heat, cold, light, hardness, soft- 

 ness, rarity, density, liquidity, solidity, animation, inanimation, 

 similitude, difference, organic formation, but taking them to be 

 self-evident, manifest, and admitted, they dispute and decide 

 upon other matters of less frequent and familiar occurrence. 



But we ( who know that no judgment can be formed of that 

 which is rare or remarkable, and much less anything new 



