188 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [BOOK V. 



But their cliief error lay in accusing the perceptions of tlie 

 senses, and thus plucked up the sciences b}^ their roots. For 

 though the senses often deceive or fail us, yet, vrhen in- 

 dustriously assisted, they may suffice for the sciences, and this 

 not so much by the help of instruments, which also have 

 their use, as of such experiments, as may furnish more subtile 

 objects than are perceivable by sense. But they should 

 rather have charged the defects of this kind upon the errors 

 and obstinacy of the mind, which refuses to obey the nature 

 of things ; and again, upon corrupt demonstrations, and 

 wrong way.3 of arguing and concluding, erroneously inferred 

 from the perceptions of sense. And this we say, not to 

 detract from the human mind, or as if the work were to be 

 deserted, but that proper assistances may be procured and 

 administered to the understanding, whereby to conquer the 

 difficulties of things and the obscurities of nature. What we 

 endeavour is, that the mind, by the help of art, may be- 

 come equal to things, and to find a certain art of indication 

 or direction, to disclose and bring other arts to light, together 

 with their axioms and effects. And this art we, upon just 

 ground, report as deficient. 



This art of indication has two parts ; for indication pro- 

 ceeds, 1. from experiment to experiment ; or 2. from ex- 

 periments to axioms, which may again point out new- 

 experiments. The former we call learned experience, and 

 the latter the interpretation of nature, Novum Organum, or 

 new machine for the mind. The first, indeed, as was formerly 

 intimated, is not properly an art, or any part of philosophy, 

 but a kind of sagacity j whence we sometimes call it the 

 3hase of Pan, borrowing the name from the fable of that 

 god. And as there are three ways of walking, viz., either by 

 feeling out one's way in the dark ; or 2. when being dim- 

 sighted, another leads one by the hand ; and 3. by directing 

 one's steps by a light : so when a man tries all kinds of ex- 

 periments without method or order, this is mere groping in 

 the dark ; but when he proceeds with some direction and 

 order in his experiments, it is as if he were led by the hand ; 

 and this we understand by learned experience : but for the 

 light itself, which is the third way, it must be derived from 

 the Novum Organum. 



The design of learned experience, or the chase of Pan, ia 



