296 NOVUM ORGANUAf. 



Lastly, when in Natural History contempt is expressed for any 

 subject as being either common or mean, or too refined and useless 

 in its original condition, we may take as our oracle that speech of the 

 poor woman to the proud prince, who would have cast aside her 

 petition as something unworthy and beneath his majesty, &quot; Cease 

 then to be a king ! &quot; for it is most certain that the empire over 

 Nature can neither be gained nor wielded by any one who refuses to 

 attend to things of this kind, as being too insignificant and trifling. 



cxxii. Again, the objection occurs, that it is a strange and harsh 

 proceeding for us to set aside all Sciences and all Authorities at once, 

 as it were by one blow and assault, and that without calling in assis 

 tance and support from any of the ancients, but, so to speak, by our 

 own unaided strength. 



But we know that, if we had chosen to act with less sincerity, it 

 would not have been difficult to have supported our propositions by 

 referring them either to the old times prior to the days of the Greeks 

 (when Natural Science was perhaps more flourishing, though less 

 noisy, from not having yet fallen in with the pipes and trumpets of the 

 Greeks) ; or even (in parts at least) to some of the Greeks themselves ; 

 and thence to have sought authority and honour, after the custom of 

 upstarts, who by the aid of genealogies contrive and fabricate for 

 themselves a noble descent from some ancient line. But we, relying 

 on the evidence of things, reject every condition of falsehood and 

 imposture, and do not think it matters any more to our subject 

 whether discoveries, now to be made, were formerly known to the 

 ancients, and have their settings and risings according to the vicissi 

 tude of things and course of time, than it matters to mankind to know 

 whether the New Hemisphere be that island of Atlantis which was 

 known to the Old World, or be now discovered for the first time. For 

 the discovery of things must be sought from the light of Nature, and 

 not brought back from the darkness of antiquity. 



But with regard to the censure being universal, it is quite certain, 

 to any one who rightly considers the matter, that it is more probable 

 and more modest than a partial one would have been. For if the 

 errors had not been rooted in first notions, there must have been some 

 true discoveries to correct those that were erroneous. But since the 

 errors were fundamental, and of such a kind as to lead rather to the 

 neglect and oversight of things than to the forming a bad or false 

 judgment about them, it is not to be wondered that men have not 

 obtained what they never aimed at ; that they have not reached a 

 goal which they have never placed or settled ; that they have not 

 accomplished a journey which they have never entered upon or 

 pursued. 



And as regards the presumption of the thing ; certainly, if any one 

 were to undertake, by steadiness of hand and power of eye, to draw a 

 straighter line, or a more perfect circle, than any one else, he would 

 be inducing a comparison of abilities ; but if he were to assert 

 that by applying a rule or compasses he could draw a straighter 

 line, or a more perfect circle, than any one else could by the help 



