278 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



again, in mechanics, or in what is mechanical, the doings of Bacchus 

 and Ceres, i.e., the preparation of wine and beer, the making of 

 bread ; or even the delicacies of the table, distillation, and the like ; 

 he will also, if he reflects and considers what long revolutions of time 

 (for all these things, with the exception of distillation, are ancient) it 

 has taken to bring these things to their present state of perfection, and 

 (as we have just said of clocks) how little they draw from observations 

 and axioms of Nature, and how easily and, as it were, by chance 

 occurrences and casual contemplation they might have been dis 

 coveredhe, I say, will easily dismiss all wonder, and rather pity the 

 condition of mankind for its long-continued dearth and barrenness of 

 facts and inventions. And yet these very discoveries which we have 

 now mentioned are more ancient than Philosophy and the arts of the 

 Intellect ; so that (to speak truth) the discovery of useful results 

 ceased when rational and dogmatic Sciences of this kind began. 



But if we turn from manufactories to libraries, and feel astonish 

 ment at the immense variety of books which we see there, let us only 

 examine and diligently inspect the matter and contents of the books 

 themselves, and our astonishment will certainly be turned in the 

 opposite direction ; and when we have observed the ceaseless repeti 

 tions, and seen how men do and say the same things, we shall pass 

 from admiration of the variety to marvel at the poverty and scantiness 

 of those things which have hitherto held and occupied men s minds. 



But if we condescend to the consideration of those things which 

 are held to be more curious than sound, and examine closely the works 

 of the alchemists or magicians, we shall perhaps hesitate whether they 

 be worthy of laughter or of tears. For the Alchemist cherishes eternal 

 hope ; and when his work does not succeed, shifts the blame on to 

 his own mistakes, accusing himself of not having sufficiently under 

 stood the words of his art or of his authors ; upon which he turns his 

 mind to tradition and muttered whispers, or thinks that in his 

 manipulation he has made some blunder of a scruple in weight, or a 

 moment in time ; wherefore he repeats his experiments to infinity : 

 and when, in the mean time, among the chances of experiment he 

 lights upon some things which are either novel in their appearance, or 

 on account of their utility not to be despised, he feasts his mind upon 

 them as pledges of what is to come, raises them into still greater 

 estimation, and supplies the rest with hope. Yet we cannot deny that 

 the Alchemists have made many discoveries, and have presented 

 mankind with useful inventions. But we may well apply to them that 

 fable of the old man, who bequeathed to his sons some gold buried in 

 a vineyard, pretending that he did not know the spot, whereupon they 

 set themselves diligently to dig the vineyard, and though no gold was 

 found, yet the vintage was made richer by that culture. 



But the cultivators of Natural Magic, who explain everything by 

 sympathies and antipathies, out of idle and most slothful conjectures 

 have fabricated for things marvellous powers and operations : but if 

 they have ever produced any results, they have been such as tended 

 to the wonderful and the novel, and not to fruit and utility. 



