250 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



functions to Logic ; whereby it is clear that they sought to support the 

 intellect while they distrusted the native and spontaneous onward 

 action of the mind. But this remedy is clearly too late in its appli 

 cation, when the cause is hopeless ; the mind, through the daily habit 

 of life, having become occupied by depraved conversation and teaching, 

 and beset by the emptiest idola. And so that art of Logic, taking its 

 precautions when, as we said, it was too late, failed entirely in 

 restoring the matter to order, and rather served to render error 

 permanent than to open out the truth. There remains only one way 

 of safe and healthy action ; it is that the whole work of the mind should 

 be recommenced anew ; that the mind, from the very beginning, be in 

 nowise left to itself, but be kept under continual restraint ; and that 

 the matter should be carried out as if by machinery. Certainly, if men 

 set about works requiring mechanical aids with their bare hands, and 

 without the power and assistance of instruments, as they have not hesi 

 tated to treat works intellectual with the almost unassisted powers of 

 the mind, very small would have been the things which they could 

 have set in motion and overcome, even though they had strained and 

 combined their powers to the utmost. And suppose that we pause 

 awhile, and look into this same illustration as into a mirror : let us 

 imagine (if you please) that some obelisk, famous for its size, had to be 

 removed to do grace to a triumph or some such pageant, and that men 

 were to attempt the removal with their bare hands, would not any sober 

 looker on admit that it was an act of downright madness ? And if 

 they were to increase the number of workmen, hoping thus to succeed, 

 would he not say it was much more so ? But if they thought proper to 

 make a selection, and were to set aside the weaker, and employ only 

 the strong and vigorous, and to hope that thus, at least, they might 

 gain their wish, would he net say that they were more extravagantly 

 beside themselves ? And further, if. not content with this, they should 

 resolve to call in the aid of the athletic art, and should bid all their 

 workmen appear henceforward with their hands, arms, and muscles 

 well oiled and doctored according to rule, would he not exclaim that 

 they were taking pains to be mad with a kind of method and foresight? 

 And yet men are carried on by a like unsound energy and useless 

 combination in matters relating to the intellect, so long as they look 

 for great results either from the number and union of natural abilities 

 or from their excellence and acuteness, or even so long as they 

 strengthen the muscles of the mind of Logic (which may almost be 

 called the athletics of the mind) ; but, in the meantime, although they 

 throw so much zeal and effort into the work, cease not (if one looks at 

 the matter fairly) to apply the intellect bare. But it is most clear that 

 in every great work, which is undertaken by the hand of man, neither 

 can the strength of individuals be intensified, or that of the many 

 united, without the aid of instruments and machinery. 



And so, from the foregoing premises, we lay down two points of 

 which we would have men clearly advised, lest, perchance, they should 

 scape or slip by them. And the first is this. It happens, by the 

 kindness of Fate, (as we think), with a view to the extinction and 



