NOVUM ORGANUM. 259 



ing at what is further off, it falls back to what is nearer, viz., to final 

 causes, which clearly have their origin rather in the nature of man 

 than that of the universe, and from this source they have wonderfully 

 corrupted philosophy. But it is the mark of a philosopher as unskilled 

 as he is shallow to look for causes in the highest universals, and not 

 to require them in subordinate and lower truths. 



xlix. The human Intellect is not of the character of a dry light, but 

 receives a tincture from the will and affections, which generates 

 &quot; sciences after its own will ;&quot; for man more readily believes what he 

 wishes to be true. And so it rejects difficult things, from impatience 

 of inquiry ; sober things, because they narrow hope ; the deeper 

 things of Nature, from superstition ; the light of experience, from 

 arrogance and disdain, lest the mind should seem to be occupied with 

 worthless and changing matters ; paradoxes, from a fear of the 

 opinion of the vulgar : in short, the affections enter and corrupt the 

 intellect in innumerable ways, and these sometimes imperceptible. 



1. But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human 

 Intellect proceeds from the dulness, incompetency, and fallacies of the 

 senses, so that those things which strike the sense outweigh those 

 which do not do so directly, although these latter be the more weighty. 

 And thus contemplation generally ends with sight, so that there is 

 little or no observation of invisible objects. Hence all operations of 

 spirits enclosed in tangible bodies are concealed, and escape the 

 notice of men. All the more subtle changes, moreover, in the dis 

 position of the parts of grosser things (which we commonly call 

 alteration, while it is really motion fcr minima}, lie concealed in like 

 manner ; and yet unless the two operations we have mentioned be ex 

 plored and brought into the light, no great results can be accomplished 

 in Nature. Again, the very nature of common air, and of all bodies 

 whose density is less than that of air (and they are very many), is 

 nearly unknown. For sense by itself is a weak thing and liable to 

 error; nor are instruments of much use for enlarging the powers of 

 the senses, or sharpening them ; but all true interpretation of Nature 

 is brought about by instances, and fit and appropriate experiments, 

 where the sense judges only of the experiment, the experiment of 

 Nature and the thing itself. 



li. The human Intellect is by its own nature prone to abstractions, 

 and imagines those things which are variable to be constant. But it 

 is better to dissect Nature than to resolve her into abstractions, as 

 did the school of Democritus, which penetrated farther into Nature 

 than did the rest. We should rather consider matter, its dispositions 

 and changes of disposition, its simple action and law of action, or 

 motion : for forms are figments of the human mind, unless we choose 

 to call these laws of actions forms. 



lii. Of this kind, therefore, are the idola which we rail the idola of 

 the tribCi which have their origin either in the uniformity of the sub 

 stance of man s spirit, or in its prejudices, or in its narrowness, or in 

 its restlessness, or in its being coloured by the affections, or in the 

 incompetency of the senses, or in the manner of the impression. 



