276 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



And another may call in Logic to aid in discovery, but it has 

 nothing to do with the matter in hand, except in name. For Logic 

 does not set herself to discover Principles and chief Axioms, of which 

 the Arts are composed, but only those things which appear to agree 

 with them. For Logic, rendering her well-known answer to the 

 curious, the importunate, the busy-body, and those who question her 

 about proofs and discoveries of Principles or first Axioms, sends them 

 back to the faith which duty pledges them to render to each indi 

 vidual art. 



Simple Experience remains, which, if it meets us unsought, is called 

 Chance ; if it be sought for, Experiment. But this kind of Experience 

 is nothing better than &quot; an unbound besom,&quot; as they say, and a mere 

 feeling, as of men in the night trying all around for the chance of 

 falling into the right way ; whereas it would be much better and more 

 considerate to wait for clay, or to light a lamp, and then to enter upon 

 the journey. But, on the other hand, the true order of Experience is 

 first to light a lamp, and then, by means of the lamp, to point out the 

 road, beginning from a well-ordered and digested Experience, the 

 opposite of what is out of place or erratic ; and from it educing 

 Axioms, and from the Axioms, when established, again new experi 

 ments, since not even the Divine Word operated on the mass of things 

 without order. 



And so men may cease to wonder that the course of the Sciences is 

 not accomplished, since they have wandered altogether from the way, 

 entirely leaving and deserting Experience, or else losing themselves 

 and wandering about in it as in a labyrinth ; while a rightly-constituted 

 order would lead then, by a continuous path, through the forests of 

 Experience to the open lands of Axioms. 



Ixxxiii. Now, that disease has grown wonderfully out of a certain 

 opinion or conceit, which, though long established, is vain and 

 injurious, namely, that the majesty of the human mind is impaired by 

 long and frequent employment upon experiments and particulars which 

 are subject to the sense and determinate in matter ; especially as 

 subjects of this kind are usually laborious to inquire into, ignoble to 

 meditate on, harsh to speak, illiberal to practice, infinite in number, 

 and refined in their subtlety. And so now at last the matter has come 

 to this, that the true way is not only deserted, but also shut up and 

 obstructed, Experience being not only abandoned or badly adminis 

 tered, but absolutely disdained. 



Ixxxiv. Again, a reverence for antiquity and the authority of men 

 esteemed great in Philosophy, and then consent, have held back men 

 from advancing in knowledge, and almost fascinated them. And con 

 cerning consent we have spoken above. 



But the opinion which men cherish about antiquity is altogether 

 slovenly, and scarcely corresponds to the word. For the old age and 

 long duration of the world are really to be taken as antiquity ; but 

 these are the attributes of our own times, and not of the more youthful 

 age of the world, as it existed among the ancients. For that age, 

 though in respect of us it is ancient and older, in respect of the world 



