NOVUM ORGANUM. 297 



of eye and hand alone, he certainly would be no great boaster. 

 Now, this remark applies not only to this our first and initial attempt, 

 but also to those who shall hereafter follow up this subject. For our 

 method of discovering Sciences goes far to equalize men s abilities, 

 and leaves them individually no great room for excelling, since it 

 performs everything by most certain rules and demonstrations. And 

 so our share in this matter (as we have often said) is the result of good 

 fortune rather than ability, and the offspring of time rather than of 

 wit. For, certainly, chance has as much to do with human thought as 

 with human works and deeds. 



cxxiii. And so we must repeat of ourselves (especially as it hits off 

 the matter so readily) that jest, that water-drinkers and winc- 

 diinkeis cannot possibly think alike.&quot; For all other men, both 

 ancients and moderns, have in the Sciences drunk a crude liquor like 

 water, either springing spontaneously out of their Intellect or drawn 

 up by Logic, as by wheels from a well. But we drink and pledge our 

 neighbours in a liquor made from countless grapes, ripe and in 

 season; collected and gathered by clusters; crushed in the wine 

 press, and, lastly, fined and clarified in the vat. And so no wonder 

 if we have not much in common with others. 



cxxiv. And doubtless, it will be further objected that the goal and 

 mark of the Sciences, which we have set before ourselves, is not the 

 true or the best (the very fault which we blame in others \ For it 

 will be said that the contemplation of truth is a more worthy and a 

 loftier matter than all utility and magnitude of results ; and that this 

 long and anxious dwelling upon Kxperiencc and Matter, and the 

 fluctuation of particular things, chains the mind to the ground, or 

 rather casts it down into a very hell of confusion and disturbance ; 

 removing and withdrawing it to a distance from the serenity and 

 tranquillity of abstract wisdom (which is a far more godlike stateX 

 Now, we readily assent to this reasoning, and are chiefly and especially 

 busied with this very point which is therein hinted at as desirable. 

 For we are building in the human Intellect a copy of the universe 

 such as it is discovered to be, and not as a man s own reason would 

 have ordered it. Now, this cannot be accomplished without a very 

 diligent dissection and anatomy of the universe; but we declare that 

 those foolish models and apish imitations of the world which the 

 fancies of men have woven in their Philosophies must be utterly 

 given to the winds. Therefore let all men know (as we have said 

 above) how much difference there is between the idvla of the human 

 Mind and the Ideas of the Divine. For the former arc nothing but 

 arbitrary abstractions ; the latter are the true stamps of the Creator 

 upon his creatures, impressed and defined in matter by true and 

 exquisite lines. And so truth and utility in this case are the very 

 same things ; and results themselves are to be more esteemed, as 

 being pledges of truth, than as supplying conveniences for life. 



cxxv. It may perhaps also be objected, that we arc doing what is 

 already done, and that the ancients themselves took the same course 

 which we are taking. And so it will be thought probable that we 



