260 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



liii. The idola of the cavern take their rise from the peculiar nature 

 of each individual both in mind and body, and also from education, 

 habit, and accident. And although this class of idola is varied and 

 manifold, yet we will set forth those cases in which caution is most 

 needed, and which have the greatest influence in corrupting the purity 

 of the intellect. 



liv. Mankind are attached to particular sciences and trains of 

 thought, either because they believe themselves to have originated 

 and discovered them, or because they have bestowed their greatest 

 labour upon them, and have become most familiar with them. But 

 if men of this kind betake themselves to philosophy and the contem 

 plation of generalities, they distort them by their former fancies, and 

 so corrupt them ; as is most especially conspicuous in Aristotle, who has 

 made his Natural Philosophy so completely subservient to his Logic as 

 to render it nearly useless, and a mere vehicle for controversy. The 

 chemists, on the other hand, out of a few experiments of the furnace, 

 have constructed a philosophy at once fantastic and limited in its 

 range. Gilbert, moreover, after he had employed himself most 

 laboriously in the consideration of the magnet, forthwith contrived a 

 system of philosophy in accordance with the subject in which he him 

 self felt so overwhelming an interest. 



Iv. The greatest and, as it were, the radical distinction between 

 minds, as far as philosophy and the sciences are concerned, is this : 

 that some are stronger and more fitted for marking the differences of 

 things ; others, for noting their resemblances. For constant and 

 acute dispositions can fix their thoughts, can pause, and fasten upon 

 every subtlety of difference ; but those that are lofty and discursive 

 recognize and compare even the most delicate and general resem 

 blances ; while each falls easily into excess, by grasping either at the 

 nice differences of things or at shadows. 



Ivi. Some dispositions are possessed with an excessive admiration 

 of what is old, others pour themselves out in the vehement desire to 

 embrace what is new ; but few possess the temperament necessary to 

 preserve the middle course, so as neither to pluck up what has been 

 rightly laid down by the ancients, nor to despise what has been rightly 

 added by the moderns. Now this causes great detriment to the 

 Sciences and Philosophy, since it gives us party views, rather than 

 fair judgments, on questions of antiquity and novelty, whereas truth 

 ought not to be sought from the felicity of any particular time, which 

 is variable, but from the light of Nature and Experience, which is 

 eternal. And so these party-likings are to be renounced ; and we 

 must take heed lest the intellect be carried away by them into 

 consent. 



Ivii. The consideration of Nature and of bodies in their simple 

 forms breaks up and distracts the intellect ; but the consideration of 

 Nature and of bodies in their compound state, and in their configura 

 tions, stupefies and relaxes it. This is best seen in the school of 

 Leucippus and Democritus, as compared with the other systems of 

 philosophy. For that school is so occupied with treating of the 



