262 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



you please), and let us see how the different things signified by this 

 word agree with one another ; we shall find that that word moist is 

 nothing but a confused symbol of different actions, which admit of no 

 consistency or reduction to rule, For it signifies that which readily 

 spreads itself round another body ; that which is in itself undetermin 

 able and has no consistence; that which yields easily in all directions ; 

 that which readily divides and disperses itself; that which easily 

 collects and unites itself; that which flows and is set in motion 

 readily ; that which readily adheres to another body, and makes it 

 wet ; that which is readily reduced to a liquid state, or melts, when it 

 before possessed consistency. And so when we come to predicate or 

 employ this name : if we take one sense, flame is moist ; if another, 

 air is not moist ; if another, fine powder is moist ; if another, glass is 

 moist ; so that it readily appears that this conception is hastily 

 abstracted from water only, and from common and ordinary liquids, 

 and without any due verification. 



But more there are in words certain degrees of faultiness and 

 error. A less faulty kind is that of the names of some substance, 

 especially of infimce species, and these well deduced (for the concep 

 tions of chalk and mud are good, that of earth, bad) ; more faulty is 

 the class of actions, as generation^ corruption, alteration; most faulty 

 that of qualities (with the exception of the immediate objects of sense), 

 as heavy, light, rare, dense, &c. ; and yet, among all these, some 

 conceptions must be a little better than others, according as a greater 

 or less number of things strikes the sense of man. 



Ixi. But the idola of the theatre are not innate, nor have they 

 secretly insinuated themselves into the intellect, but are plainly intro 

 duced and received from the .plays of theory, and perverse laws of 

 demonstrations. To attempt, however, or to undertake their confuta 

 tion would be by no means consistent with our previous declarations. 

 For seeing that we agree neither in first principles, nor yet in demon 

 strations, all discussion is at an end. And this is fortunate, for so the 

 ancients preserve their rightful honour. For they suffer no detraction, 

 since the question is exclusively of the path to be pursued. For a 

 lame man (as the saying goes), in the right path, outstrips the swift 

 runner out of it. And it is manifestly clear that, when a man is 

 running out of the right road, his superior skill and swiftness will lead 

 him proportionately further astray, But our method of discovering 

 the Sciences is such as to leave little to the sharpness and strength of 

 men s wits, but to bring all wits and intellects nearly to a level. For 

 as in drawing a straight line, or describing an accurate circle by the 

 unassisted hand, much depends on its steadiness and practice, but if 

 a rule or a pair of compasses be applied, little or nothing depends 

 upon them, so exactly is it with our method. Now although it is of 

 no use to descend to individual confutations, still we must say some 

 thing of the sects and classes of theories of this sort, and afterwards 

 something concerning the external tokens of their weakness ; and, 

 lastly, we must say a little about the causes of so great a misfortune, 

 and of so long and general an agreement in error, that the approach 



