438 NOVUM ORGANUM. [bOOK 1. 



CXVII. And, as we pretend not to found a secft, so do we 

 neither offer nor promise particular effects ; wliicli may occasion 

 some to object to us, tliat since we so often speak of effects, and 

 consider everything in its relation to that end, we ought also to 

 give some earnest of producing them. Our^course and method, 

 however (as we have often said, and again repeat), Is such as not 

 to deduce effects from effects, nor experiments fronfexpmBients 

 (as the empirics do), but in our capacity. of legitimate interpreters 

 of nature, to deduce"~"cair5es' and axioms from effects and ex- 

 periments i^ad new effects and experiments from thosiJ. ca:uses 

 an^paSSma. 



And although any one of moderate intelligence and ability 

 will observe the indications and sketches of many noble effects 

 in our tables of inventions (which form the fourth part of the 

 Instauration), and also in the examples of particular instances 

 cited in the second part, as well as in our observations on history 

 (which is the subject of the third part); yet we candidly confess 

 that our present natural history, whether compiled from books 

 or our own inquiries, is not sufficiently copious and well ascer- 

 tained to satisfy, or even assist, a proper interpretation. 



If, therefore, there be any one who is more disposed and pre- 

 pared for mechanical art, and ingenious in discovering effects, 

 than in the mere management of experiment, we allow him to 

 employ his industry in gathering many of the fruits of our 

 history and tables in this way, and applying them to effects, re- 

 ceiving them as interest till he can obtain the principal, Por 

 our own part, having a greater object in view, we condemn all 

 Jiasty and premature rest in such pursuits as we would Atalanta's 

 apple (to use a common allusion of ours) ; for we are not child- 

 ishly ambitious of golden fruit, but use all our efforts to make 

 the course of art outstrip nature, and we hasten not to reap moss 

 or the green blade, bnt wait for n, ripe harvest . 



CX VIII. There will1)e some, without cloul5t, who, on a perusal 

 of our history and tables of invention, will meet with some un- 

 certainty, or perhaps fallacy, in the experiments themselves, and 

 will thence perhaps imagine that our discoveries are built on 

 false foundations and principles. There is, however, really 

 nothing in this, since it must needs happen in beginnings.^ For 



1 Bacon's apology is sound, and coinpletely answers those German 

 find French critics, who have refused him a niche in the philoso- 

 phical pantheon. One German commentator, too modest to reveal his 

 name, accuses Bacon of ignorance of the calculus, though, in his day, 

 Wallis had not yet stumbled upon the laws of continuous fractions ; while 

 Count de Maistre, in a coarse attack upon his genius, expresses hia 

 astonishment at finding Bacon unacquainted with discoveries which 

 wers not heard of till a century after his death. £d. 



