NOVUM ORGAKUM. 261 



particles of things as almost to neglect their general structure, while 

 the others look with such astonishment upon the structures that they 

 do not penetrate to the simple forms of Nature ; these two kinds of 

 contemplation should, therefore, be interchanged and taken in turn, 

 that the intellect may be rendered at once penetrating and capacious, 

 ami that the inconveniences which we have mentioned, and the idola 

 springing out of them, may be avoided. 



Iviii. Let us, therefore, exercise this foresight in our contemplations, 

 in keeping at a distance and getting rid of the idola of the cave, which 

 mostly arise from some predominating influence, from excess in com 

 position and division, from party-liking for particular times, or from 

 the magnitude or minuteness of the object. And, as a general rule, 

 every one who contemplates the nature of things should distrust 

 whatever most readily takes and holds captive his own intellect, and 

 should use so much the more caution in coming to determinations of 

 this kind, that his understanding may remain impartial and clear. 



lix. Hut the idola of the market-place are the most troublesome of 

 all ; those, namely, which have crept into the understanding from the 

 association of words and names. For men believe that their reason 

 governs words : but it also happens that words have a reflex action of 

 their own upon the understanding ; and this has rendered Philosophy 

 and the Sciences sophistical and inactive. Now words are for the 

 most part used in accordance with the popular acceptation, and define 

 things by lines most obvious to the popular intellect. When, however, 

 a sharper intellect, or a more diligent observer wishes to shift these 

 lines, and to place them more according to Nature, words cry out 

 against it. Whence it happens that great and grand discussions of 

 learned men often end in controversies about words and names, while 

 it would be more advisable to start from these (according to the 

 prudent custom of the Mathematicians), and to reduce them to order 

 by definitions. And yet these definitions, in the case of natural and 

 material things, cannot cure this evil, since both definitions themselves 

 consist of words, and words beget words ; so that it is necessary to 

 recur to particular instances, and their series and orders, as we shall 

 presently mention, when we shall have come to the manner and plan 

 of constituting conceptions and axioms. 



Ix. Idola, which arc imposed on the intellect by means of words, are 

 of two kinds ; either they arc the names of things which have no 

 existence (for as there are things without names through want of 

 observation, so there are also names without things through fanciful 

 supposition;, or they are names of things which do exist, but are con 

 fused and ill-defined, and hastily and partially abstracted from things. 

 Of the former kind are Chance, the primitm mobile, the Orbits of 

 the Planets, the Element of Fire, and figments of the like kind, which 

 have their rise in vain and false theories; and this class of idola is the 

 more easily got rid of, because they can be exterminated by a constant 

 refutation of the theories and by their becoming obsolete. 



Hut the other kind, which is caused by bad and unskilful abstraction, 

 is intricate, and takes a deep hold. E.g ., take some word (mois^ if 



