THE NOVUM ORGANUM. 89 



of Nature. Again, he is the minister naturaa, because in all his 

 works he can only arrange the things with which he deals in 

 the order and form which Nature requires. All the rest comes 

 from her only ; the conditions she requires having been fulfilled, 

 she produces new phenomena according to the laws of her own 

 action. Thus the two words minister and interpres refer re- 

 spectively to works and contemplation to power and know- 

 ledge the substance of Bacon's theory of both being compressed i 

 into a single phrase. The third and fourth aphorisms are de- 

 velopments of the first ; the second relating not to the theory of 

 knowledge, but to the necessity of providing helps for the 

 understanding. 



Then follow (5 10.) reflections on the sterility of the ex- 

 isting sciences, and (11 17.) remarks on the inutility of logic. 

 In (14.) Bacon asserts that everything must depend on a just 

 method of induction. From (18.) to (37.) he contrasts the only 

 two ways in which knowledge can be sought for ; namely anti- 

 cipations of Nature and the interpretation of Nature. In the 

 former method men pass at once from particulars to the highest 

 generalities, and thence deduce all intermediate propositions ; 

 in the latter they rise by gradual induction and successively, 

 from particulars to axioms of the lowest generality, then to in- 

 termediate axioms, and so ultimately to the highest. And this 

 is the true way, but as yet untried. 



Then from (38.) to (68.) Bacon developes the doctrine of idols. 

 It is to be remarked that he uses the word idolon in antithesis 

 to idea, the first place where it occurs being the twenty-third 

 aphorism. " Non leve quiddam interest," it is there said, " inter 

 humanae mentis idola et divinae mentis ideas." He nowhere 

 refers to the common meaning of the word, namely the image 

 of a false god. Idols are with him " placita quaedam inania," 

 or more generally, the false notions which have taken possession 

 of men's minds. The doctrine of idols stands [he says] in the 

 same relation to the interpretation of Nature, as the doctrine of 

 fallacies to ordinary logic. 



Of idols Bacon enumerates four kinds, the idols of the tribe, 

 of the cave, of the market-place, and of the theatre ; and it has 

 been supposed that this classification is borrowed from Roger 

 Bacon, who in the beginning of the Opus Majus speaks of 

 four hindrances whereby men are kept back from the attain- 

 ment of true knowledge. But this supposition is for several 



