NOVUM ORGANUM 363 



disturbance, and separates and removes it from a much more di- 

 vine state, the quiet and tranquillity of abstract wisdom. We 

 willingly assent to their reasoning, and are most anxious to ef- 

 fect the very point they hint at and require. For we are found- 

 ing a real model of the world in the understanding, such as it is 

 found to be, not such as man's reason has distorted. Now this 

 cannot be done without dissecting and anatomizing the world 

 most diligently ; but we declare it necessary to destroy complete- 

 ly the vain little, and as it were, apish imitations of the world, 

 which have been formed in various systems of philosophy by 

 men's fancies. Let men learn (as we have said above), the dif- 

 ference that exists between the idols of the human mind and 

 the ideas of the divine mind. The former are mere arbitrary 

 abstractions; the latter the true marks of the Creator on his 

 creatures, as they are imprinted on, and defined in matter, by 

 true and exquisite touches. Truth, therefore, and utility, are 

 here perfectly identical, and the effects are of more value as 

 pledges of truth than from the benefit they confer on men. 



125. Others may object that we are only doing that which 

 has already been done, and that the ancients followed the same 

 course as ourselves. They may imagine, therefore, that, after 

 all this stir and exertion, we shall at last arrive at some of those 

 systems that prevailed among the ancients : for that they, too, 

 when commencing their meditations, laid up a great store of 

 instances and particulars, and digested them under topics and 

 titles in their common-place books, and so worked out their sys- 

 tems and arts, and then decided upon what they discov- 

 ered, and related now and then some examples to confirm and 

 throw light upon their doctrine; but thought it superfluous 

 and troublesome to publish their notes, minutes, and common- 

 places, and therefore followed the example of builders who re- 

 move the scaffolding and ladders when the building is fin- 

 ished. Nor can we indeed believe the case to have been otherwise, 

 But to anyone, not entirely forgetful of our previous observa- 

 tions, it will be easy to answer this objection, or rather scruple ; 

 for we allow that the ancients had a particular form of investi- 

 gation and discovery, and their writings show it. But it was 

 of such a nature, that they immediately flew from a few in- 

 stances and particulars (after adding some common notions, 

 and a few generally received opinions most in vogue) to the 

 most general conclusions or the principles of the sciences, and 

 then by their intermediate propositions deduced their inferior 

 conclusions, and tried them by the test of the immovable and 

 settled truth of the first, and so constructed their art. Lastly, 

 if some new particulars and instances were brought forward, 

 which contradicted their dogmas, they either with great subtilty 

 reduced them to one system, by distinctions or explanations 



