XOVUM ORGANUM; 



OR, TRUE DIRECTIONS FOR THE INTER 

 PRETATION OF NATURE. 



PREFACE. 



THOSE who have presumed to dogmatize on Nature as on a well- 

 explored subject, whether they have done so from self-confidence or 

 affectedly and in a professorial manner, have done very great harm 

 to Philosophy and the Sciences. For, so far as they have succeeded 

 in gaining credit, they have been instrumental in stifling and breaking 

 off inquiry : and the services which they have rendered have been 

 outweighed by the injury they have done in corrupting and destroying 

 those uf others. And those who have proceeded in the opposite 

 course, and have declared that nothing at all can be known, whether 

 they have fallen into this opinion from a dislike to the ancient Sophists, 

 or from want of decision, or even from a sort of overabundance of 

 learning, have certainly adduced reasons for it which are not to be 

 despised : yet they have not drawn their conclusion from true 

 beginnings ; but, carried forward by a kind of earnestness and 

 affectation, have overstepped all bounds. l)ut the older Greeks 

 (whose writings have perished) have steered more prudently between 

 the arrogance of dogmatizing and the despair of Acatalepsy : and while 

 they vented complaints and expressions of indignation at the difficulty 

 of inquiry and the obscurity of things, and, so to speak, champed the 

 bit, still did not fail to press their point and to grapple with Nature ; 

 thinking it better, as it seemed, not to dispute the question (whether 

 anything can be known), but to leave it to experiment. Even they, 

 however, used only the bare force of intellect, unguidcd by any fixed 

 rule, and put all their trust in intense meditation of continual action 

 and exercise of the mind. 



But our plan is as easy to describe as it is difficult to put in practice. 

 For it consists in laying down degrees of certainty, in guarding the 

 sense from error by a process of correction, while we reject for the 

 most part that operation of the mind which follows close upon the 

 sense ; and then in opening and constructing a new and certain way 

 for the mind from the very perceptions of the senses. And this was, 

 doubtless, also recognized by those who assigned such important 



