402 GREAT INSTAURATION. 



too bold and astonishing to obtain credit, yet he thought it not right 

 to desert either the cause or himself, but to boldly enter on the way 

 and explore the only path which is pervious to the human mind. For 

 it is wiser to engage in an undertaking that admits of some termina 

 tion, than to involve oneself in perpetual exertion and anxiety about 

 what is interminable. The ways of contemplation, indeed, nearly 

 correspond to two roads in nature, one of which, steep and rugged at 

 the commencement, terminates in a plain ; the other, at first view 

 smooth and easy, leads only to huge rocks and precipices. Uncertain, 

 however, whether these reflections would occur to another, and 

 observing that he had never met any person disposed to apply his 

 mind to similar thoughts, he determined to publish whatsoever he 

 found time to perfect. Nor is this the haste of ambition, but anxiety, 

 that if he should die there might remain behind him some outline and 

 determination of the matter his mind had embraced, as well as some 

 mark of his sincere and earnest affection to promote the happiness of 

 mankind. 



AUTHOR S PREFACE. 



Of the state of learning That it is neither prosperous nor greatly advanced, and 

 that a way must be opened to the human understanding entirely distinct from 

 that known to our predecessors, and different aids procured, that the mind may 

 exercise her power over the nature of things. 



IT appears to me that men know neither their acquirements nor their 

 powers, but fancy their possessions greater and their faculties less than 

 they are ; whence, either valuing the received nrts above measure, they 

 look out no farther ; or else despising themselves too much, they 

 exercise their talents upon lighter matters, without attempting the 

 capital things of all. And hence the sciences seem to have their 

 Hercules Pillars, which bound the desires and hopes of mankind. 



But as a false imagination of plenty is among the principal causes 

 of want, and as too great a confidence in things present leads to a 

 neglect of the future, it is necessary we should here admonish mankind 

 that they do not too highly value or extol either the number or useful 

 ness of the things hitherto discovered ; for, by closely inspecting the 

 multiplicity of books upon arts and sciences, we find them to contain 

 numberless repetitions of the same things in point of invention, but 

 differing indeed as to the manner of treatment ; so that the real dis 

 coveries, though at the first view they may appear numerous, prove 

 upon examination but few. And as to the point of usefulness, the 

 philosophy we principally received from the Greeks must be acknow 

 ledged puerile, or rather talkative than generative as being fruitful 

 in controversies, but barren of effects. 



The fable of Scylla seems a civil representation of the present 

 condition of knowledge ; for she exhibited the countenance and 

 expression of a virgin, whilst barking monsters encircled her womb. 

 Even thus the sciences have their specious and plausible generalities; 



