362 



BACON 



With regard to the universal censure we have bestowed, it 

 is quite clear to any one who properly considers the matter, that 

 it is both more probable and more modest than any partial one 

 could have been. For if the errors had not been rooted in the 

 primary notions, some well conducted discoveries must have 

 corrected others that were deficient. But since the errors were 

 fundamental, and of such a nature, that men may be said rather 

 to have neglected or passed over things, than to have formed a 

 wrong or false judgment of them, it is little to be wondered at, 

 that they did not obtain what they never aimed at, nor arrive at 

 a goal which they had not determined, nor perform a course 

 which they had neither entered upon nor adhered to. 



With regard to our presumption, we allow that if we were to 

 assume a power of drawing a more perfect straight line or cir- 

 cle than anyone else, by superior steadiness of hand or acute- 

 ness of eye. it would lead to a comparison of talent ; but if one 

 merely assert that he can draw a more perfect line or circle with 

 a ruler or compasses, than another can by his unassisted hand 

 or eye, he surely cannot be said to boast of much. Now this 

 applies not only to our first original attempt, but also to those 

 who shall hereafter apply themselves to the pursuit. For our 

 method of discovering the sciences merely levels men's wits, 

 and leaves but little to their superiority, since it achieves every- 

 thing by the most certain rules and demonstrations. Whence 

 (as we have often observed), our attempt is to be attributed to 

 fortune rather than talent, and is the offspring of time rather 

 than of wit. For a certain sort of chance has no less effect 

 upon our thoughts than on our acts and deeds. 



123. We may, therefore, apply to ourselves the joke of him 

 who said, that water and wine drinkers could not think alike,* 

 especially as it hits the matter so well. For others, both an- 

 cients and moderns, have in the sciences drank a crude liquor 

 like water, either flowing of itself from the understanding, or 

 drawn up by logic as the wheel draws up the bucket. But we 

 drink and pledge others with a liquor made of many well 

 ripened grapes, collected and plucked from particular branches, 

 squeezed in the press, and at last clarified and fermented in a 

 vessel. It is not, therefore, wonderful that we should not 

 agree with others. 



124. Another objection will without doubt be made, name- 

 ly, that we have not ourselves established a correct, or the best 

 goal or aim of the sciences (the very defect we blame in others). 

 For they will say that the contemplation of truth is more dig- 

 nified and exalted than any utility or extent of effects ; but that 

 our dwelling so long and anxiously on experience and matter, 

 and the fluctuating state of particulars, fastens the mind to 

 earth, or rather casts it down into an abyss of confusion and 



