THE NOVUM ORGANUM. 91 



wrong principles of demonstration. This classification occurs 

 also in Valerius Terminus. 1 



The first of these three classes corresponds to the first and 

 second of those spoken of in the Novum Organum. The idols 

 of the tribe are those which belong, as Aristotle might have 

 said, to the human mind as it is human, the erroneous tenden- 

 cies common more or less to all mankind. The idols of the 

 cave arise from each man's mental constitution : the metaphor 

 being suggested by a passage in the [opening of the seventh 

 book of Plato's Republic."]* Both classes of extraneous idols 

 mentioned in the Partis secundce Delineatio are included in the 

 idola theatri, and the idola fori correspond to nothing in the 

 earlier classification. 3 They also are extraneous idols, but result 

 neither from received opinions nor erroneous forms of demon- 

 stration, but from the influence which words of necessity exert. 

 They are called idols of the market-place because they are 

 caused by the daily intercourse of common life. " Yerba," re- 

 marks Bacon, " ex captu vulgi imponuntur." 



It is only when we compare the later with the earlier form of 

 the doctrine of idols that we perceive the principle of classifi- 

 cation which Bacon was guided by, namely the division of 

 idols according as they come from the mind itself or from with- 

 out. 4 In the Novum Organum two belong to the former class 

 and two to the latter, so that the members of the classification 

 are better balanced 5 than in the previous arrangement: in both 

 perhaps we perceive a trace of the dichotomizing principle of 

 Ramus, one of the seeming novelties which he succeeded in 

 making popular. 6 



1 Not in Valerius Terminus. It occurs in the Distributio Opens, and may be 

 traced though less distinctly in the Advancement and the De Augmentis. See Note 

 C. at the end. J. S. 



2 Mr. Ellis had written " in the of Aristotle." But the words of the 

 De Augmentis (v. 4.) (" de specu Platonis ") prove that it was the passage in Plato 

 which suggested the metaphor. J. S. 



3 i. e. in the classification adopted in the Partis secundce Delineatio ; for they 

 correspond exactly with the third kind of fallacies or false appearances mentioned in 

 the Advancement, and with the idols of the palace in Valerius Terminus. And I 

 think they were meant to be included among the "Inhserentia et Innata" of the 

 Delineatio. See Note C. J. S. 



4 Rather, I think, as they are separable or inseparable from our nature and con- 

 dition in life. See Note C. /. S. 



5 Compare the Distributio Operis, where the classification is retained, with the Novum 

 Organum, where it is not alluded to, and I think it will be seen that Bacon did not 

 intend to balance the members in this way. See Note C. at the end. /. S. 



8 Bacon alludes to Ramus in the De Augmentis vi. 2., "Deunica methodo et 

 dichotomiis perpetuis nil attinet dicere. Fuit enim nubecula qusedam doctrinae quae 

 cito transiit : res certe simul et scientiis damnosissima," &c. 



