NOVUM ORGANUM; 



OR, 



rRUESiiaaESTioxs for the interpretation of nature 



Pr.EFACE. 



Thet who have presumed to dogmatize on nature, as on some well 

 investigated subject, either from self-conceit or arrogance, and in the 

 professorial style, have inflicted the greatest injury on philosophy and 

 learning. For they have tended to stifle and interrupt inquiry exactly 

 in proportion as they have prevailed in bringing others to their opinion : 

 and their own activity has not counterbalanced the mischief they have 

 occasioned by corrupting and destroying that of others. They again 

 who have entered upon a contrary course, and asserted that nothing 

 whatever can be known, whether they have fallen into this opinion from 

 their hatred of the ancient sophists, or from the hesitation of their 

 minds, or from an exuberance of leai-ning, have certainly adduced 

 reasons for it which are by no means contemptible. They have not, how- 

 ever, derived their opinion from true sources, and, hurried on by their 

 zeal and some affectation, have certainly exceeded due moderation. But 

 the more ancient Greeks ^whose writinsrs have perished), held a more 

 })rudent mean, between the arrc>^nce of dogmatism, and the despair 

 of scepticism ; and though too frequently intermingling complaints and 

 indignation at the difficulty of inquiry, and the obscurity of things, and 

 champing, as it were, the bit, liave still persisted in pressing their point, 

 and pursuing their intercourse with nature ; thinking, as it seems, that 

 the better method was not to dispute upon the very point of the possi- 

 bility of anything being known, but to put it to the test of experience. 

 Yet they themselves, by only employing the power of the understand- 

 ing, have not adopted a fixed rule, but have laid their whole stress upon 

 intense meditation, and a continual exercise and perpetual agitation of 

 the mind. 



Our method, though difficult in its operation, is easily explained. It 

 consists in determining the degrees of certainty, whilst we, as it were, 

 ••^store the senses to their former rank, but generally reject that opera- 

 tion of the mind which follows close upon the senses, and open and 

 establish a new and certain course for the mind from the first actual 

 perceptions of the senses themselves. This, no doubt, was the view 

 taken by those who have assigned so much to logic ; showing clearly 

 thereby that they sought some support for the mind, and suspected its 

 natural and spontaneous mode of action. But this is now employed too 

 i&te r^ a remedy, when all is clearly lost, and after the mind, by th« 



