333 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



between man and an inverted plant. For the head is the root of the 

 nerves and faculties of animals ; while the seed-bearing parts are 

 lowest, not taking into account the extremities of the legs and arms. 

 But in a plant, the root (which answers to the head) is regularly placed 

 in the lowest position ; and the seeds in the highest. 



Lastly ; we must especially impress this precept : indeed we cannot 

 too frequently remind men that their diligence in investigating and 

 collecting Natural History must henceforth be entirely changed and 

 turned into the opposite direction to that which it takes at present. 

 For hitherto the industry of men has been great, and they have been 

 very curious in marking the variety of things and in explaining the 

 exact differences of animals, herbs, and fossils ; most of which are 

 rather sports of Nature than of any serious use towards the Sciences. 

 Things of this kind certainly tend to our gratification, and sometimes 

 even to practical results, but they do little or nothing towards gaining 

 an insight into Nature. And so our efforts must be entirely directed 

 towards investigating and observing the resemblances and analogies 

 of things, both in their entirety and in their parts ; for these are the 

 things which unite Nature and commence the constitution of the 

 Sciences. 



But, in cases very weighty and urgent, caution must be added, that 

 those things only be taken for Conformable and Proportionate Instances 

 which denote (as we have said at the beginning) physical resemblances ; 

 those, that is, which are real and substantial, lying deep in Nature, 

 not such as are accidental and apparent, much less such as are 

 superstitious or curious, which the writers on Natural Magic (arrant 

 triflers, scarcely fit to be named in such serious matters as those which 

 we are now handling) are everywhere parading ; describing, with great 

 vanity and folly, empty similitudes and sympathies of things, and 

 sometimes even inventing them. 



But, leaving these, in the very configuration of the world itself, in its 

 greater parts, there are Conformable Instances which must not be 

 neglected ; as Africa, and the region of Peru, with the continent 

 stretching as far as the Straits of Magellan. For each region has 

 similar isthmuses and similar promontories, a coincidence which is 

 not accidental. 



Also the New and the Old World are Conformable ; in that both 

 Worlds are broad and extended towards the North, but narrow and 

 pointed towards the South. 



Again, we find most conspicuous Conformable Instances in the 

 intense colds of what is called the mid region of the air, and the very 

 fierce fires which are often found bursting out of subterranean places ; 

 two occurrences which are most widely and extremely removed ; that 

 is to say, the extreme of the Nature of Cold towards the expanse 

 of the sky, and the extreme of the Nature of Heat towards the 

 bowels of the earth ; by Antiperistasis, or Rejection of a contrary 

 Nature. 



And lastly, the Conformity of Instances in the Axioms of the 

 Sciences is worthy of remark ; thus the figure in rhetoric called 



