254 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



of the immediate apprehensions of the sense, as Hot, Cold, White, 

 Black, do not greatly deceive us ; and yet even they are sometimes 

 confused by the flux of matter and the intermingling of things : all 

 others, which men have used up to this time, are errors, and unduly 

 abstracted and drawn out from things. 



xvii. Nor is there less license and error in determining Axioms 

 than in abstracting conceptions : and that in the very principles which 

 depend on common induction. But much more is this the case in 

 axioms and inferior propositions, which are called forth by the 

 Syllogism. 



xviii. The discoveries hitherto made in the Sciences are of a kind 

 usually bordering upon common conceptions ; but, in order that we 

 may penetrate to the inner and more remote parts of Nature, it is 

 necessary that conceptions, as well as axioms, should be abstracted 

 from things by a more certain and better constructed way, and that a 

 method of applying the intellect, altogether better and more certain, 

 should be brought into use. 



xix. There are and can be but two ways of investigating and dis 

 covering Truth. The one flies from sense and particulars to the most 

 general axioms, and from these as first principles, and their undisputed 

 truth, determines and discovers middle axioms ; and this is the way 

 which is in use. The other draws out the axioms from sense and 

 particulars, by ascending uniformly and step by step, so that at last 

 it reaches the most general ; and this is the true way, but untried. 



xx. The Intellect, when left to itself, enters on the same road that 

 it follows according to the order of Logic, and this is the first. For 

 the mind delights in starting oft&quot; to wider generalities, that it may find 

 rest, and after a short delay is disgusted with experience ; but these 

 evils are, after all, exaggerated by Logic, on account of ostentatious 

 disputations. 



xxi. The Intellect, when left to itself, in a sober, patient, and grave 

 disposition (especially if it be not hindered by received doctrines), 

 sometimes tries the second way, viz. the right one, but makes 

 little advance ; since the Intellect, without direction and assistance, 

 acts irregularly, and is quite inadequate to overcoming the obscurity 

 of things. 



xxii. Each way begins from sense and particulars, and rests in the 

 most general propositions : but yet they differ vastly ; since the one 

 only touches cursorily on experience and particulars, while the other 

 becomes duly and regularly familiar with them ; the one again, from 

 the first beginning, lays down some abstract and useless generalities ; 

 the other rises, step by step, to those things which are more familiar 

 to Nature (/&amp;gt;., higher abstractions). 



xxiii. There is no slight difference between the idola of the human 

 mind and the idea of the divine mind ; that is, between certain vain 

 conceits and the true marks and impressions made on created things 

 as they are found by us. 



xxiv. It can nowise be that Axioms established by a process of 

 argument should be of use for the discovery of new results, because 



