THE NOVUM ORGANUM. 95 



obstacle of all, namely despair of the possibility of progress. 

 To remove this, he goes on to state the grounds of hope for the 

 future, a discussion which extends from (93.) to (115.). 



" Principium autem," he begins, " sumendum a Deo ; " that is 

 to say, the excellence of the end proposed is in itself an indi- 

 cation that the matter in hand is from God, nor is the prophecy 

 of Daniel concerning the latter times to be omitted, namely that 

 many shall go to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. 

 Again, the errors committed in time past are a reason for hoping 

 better things in the time to come. He therefore sets forth these 

 errors at some length (95 107.). This enumeration begins 

 with the passage already mentioned [as occurring in the Cogitata 

 et Visa], in which the true method is spoken of as intermediate 

 to those of the dogmatici or rationales, and of the empirici. 

 There will be, he concludes, good ground for hope when the 

 experimental and reasoning faculties are more intimately united 

 than they have ever yet been. So likewise when natural phi- 

 losophy ceases to be alloyed with matter extraneous to it, and 

 when any one can be found content to begin at the beginning 

 and, putting aside all popularly received notions and opinions, to 

 apply himself afresh to experience and particulars. And here 

 Bacon introduces an illustration which he has also employed 

 elsewhere, comparing the regeneration of the sciences to the 

 exploits of Alexander, which were at first esteemed portentous 

 and more than human, and yet afterwards it was Livy's judg- 

 ment that he had done no more than despise a vain show of 

 difficulty. Bacon then resumes his enumeration of the improve- 

 ments which are to be made, each of which will be a ground of 

 hope. The first is a better natural history than has yet been 

 composed; and it is to be observed that a natural history which 

 is designed to contain the materials for the instauration of phi- 

 losophy differs essentially from a natural history which has no 

 such ulterior end : the chief difference is, that an ordinary 

 natural history does not contain the experimental results fur- 

 nished by the arts. In the second place, among these results 

 themselves there is a great lack of experimenta lucifera, that is 

 of experiments which, though not practically useful, yet serve to 

 give light for the discovery of causes and axioms : hitherto 

 men have busied themselves for the most part with experimenta 

 fructifera, that is experiments of use and profit. Thirdly, ex- 

 perimental researches must be conducted orderly and according 



