NOVVM OKGANUAf. 263 



to the truth may be rendered less difficult, and the human Intellect be 

 more readily purified, and brought to dismiss its idola. 



Ixii. The idola of the theatre, or of theories, are numerous, and 

 may, and perhaps will, some day be more so. For if men s minds 

 had not been, these many generations, occupied with religion and 

 theology, and had not civil politics also (especially monarchies) been 

 so averse to such novelties, even in matters of contemplation, that if 

 men apply themselves to them, they must do so with risk and injury 

 to their fortunes, and not only go without reward, but expose them 

 selves to derision and ill-will ; had this not been the case, without 

 doubt, many other sects of philosophers and theories would have been 

 introduced, similar to those which once flourished in great variety 

 among the Greeks. For, as many systems of the heavens may be 

 fabricated out of the phenomena of the sky, so likewise, in a much 

 greater degree, may dogmas of different kinds be founded and built 

 up on the phenomena of philosophy. And plays of this kind of 

 Theatre have this also in common with those current in the Theatre 

 of the poets, that the stories invented for the stage are neater, more 

 elegant, and more agreeable to the taste than the true stories of 

 history. 



In general, however, in preparing the subject-matter of Philosophy, 

 men either draw a great deal from a few instances, or a little from a 

 great number ; so that, in either case, Philosophy is founded on too 

 narrow a basis of experience and natural history, and dogmatizes on 

 too insufficient evidence. For the &quot; rational &quot; class of philosophizes 

 seize various common circumstances from experience, without ascer 

 taining them for certain, or diligently examining and weighing them ; 

 they leave the rest to reflection and activity of wit. 



There is another class of philosophers who have worked diligently 

 and accurately in a few experiments, and have ventured thence to 

 educe and construct systems of philosophy : twisting everything else 

 into agreement with them after a wonderful fashion. 



There is also a third class, who, influenced by faith and a spirit of 

 veneration, introduce theology and traditions ; some of whom, in their 

 folly, have gone so far out of the way as to seek and to derive the 

 Sciences from spirits, forsooth, and genii : so that the source of error, 

 like the false philosophy, is of three kinds, sophistical, empirical, and 

 superstitious. 



Ixiii. We have a most conspicuous example of the first class in 

 Aristotle, who has corrupted Natural Philosophy with his Logic; 

 thus he has made the Universe out of Categories ; has assigned to 

 the human soul that noblest of substances a genus from words of 

 second intention ; determined the question of density and rarity, by 

 which bodies occupy greater and less dimensions or spaces, by the 

 cold distinction between act and power; asserted that each body has 

 its peculiar and proper motion, and that, if it partakes of another 

 motion, it is moved from another source ; and has conferred countless 

 other laws upon the nature of things at his own will : being everywhere 

 more anxious to show how a man may extricate himself from a 



