Francis Bacon

“ Lastly, knowing how much the sight of man’s mind is distracted by experience and history, and how hard it is at the first (especially for minds either tender or preoccupied) to become familiar with nature, I not unfrequently subjoin observations of my own, being as the first offers, inclinations, and as it were glances of history towards philosophy; both by way of an assurance to men that they will not be kept for ever tossing on the waves of experience, and also that when the time comes for the intellect to begin its work, it may find everything the more ready. ”

“ For let men please themselves as they will in admiring and almost adoring the human mind, this is certain: that as an uneven mirror distorts the rays of objects according to its own figure and section, so the mind, when it receives impressions of objects through the sense, cannot be trusted to report them truly, but in forming its notions mixes up its own nature with the nature of things. ”

“ For there is no method of demonstration, or form of interpreting nature, so excellent as to be able to afford and supply matter for knowledge, as well as to defend and support the mind against error and failure. But those who resolve not to conjecture and divine, but to discover and know, not to invent buffooneries and fables about worlds, but to inspect, and, as it were, dissect the nature of this real world, must derive all from things themselves. ”

“ Therefore I set down at length all experiments of the mechanical arts, of the operative part of the liberal arts, of the many crafts which have not yet grown into arts properly so called, so far as I have been able to examine them and as they conduce to the end in view. Nay (to say the plain truth) I do in fact (low and vulgar as men may think it) count more upon this part both for helps and safeguards than upon the other; seeing that the nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom. ”

“ For it concerns our own character, no less than the advantage of others, to know that a mere capricious idea has not presented the subject to our mind, and that all we desire and aim at is a wish. For our designs are within the power of all to compass, and we ourselves have certain and evident demonstrations of their utility. We come not hither, as augurs, to measure out regions in our mind by divination, but like generals, to invade them for conquest. ”

“ And the art which we employ (and which we are wont to call the interpretation of nature) is a kind of logic. For common logic professes to contrive and prepare helps and guards for the understanding, and so far they agree. But ours differs from the common, chiefly in three respects, namely, in its end, the order of demonstration, and the beginning of the inquiry.
For the end of our science is not to discover arguments, but arts, nor what is agreeable to certain principles, but the principles themselves, nor probable reasons, but designations and indications of effects. ”

“ We, therefore, lay no great stress upon the immediate and natural perceptions of the senses, but desire the senses to judge only of experiments, and experiments to judge of things: on which foundation, we hope to be patrons of the senses, and interpreters of their oracles. And thus we mean to procure the things relating to the light of nature, and the setting it up in the mind; which might well suffice, if the mind were as white paper. But since the minds of men are so strangely disposed, as not to receive the true images of things, it is necessary also that a remedy be found for this evil. ”

“ Now what the sciences stand in need of is a form of induction which shall analyse experience and take it to pieces, and by a due process of exclusion and rejection lead to an inevitable conclusion. And if that ordinary mode of judgment practised by the logicians was so laborious, and found exercise for such great wits, how much more labour must we be prepared to bestow upon this other, which is extracted not merely out of the depths of the mind, but out of the very bowels of nature. ”

“ Lastly, having well observed how far experiments and history distract the mind; and how difficult it is, especially for tender or prejudiced persons, to converse with nature from the beginning, we shall continually subjoin our observations, as so many first glances of natural history at philosophy; and this to give mankind some earnest, that they shall not be kept perpetually floating upon the waves of history; and that when they come to the work of the understanding, and the explanation of nature, they may find all things in greater readiness. ”

“ The idols, or false notions, which possess the mind, are either acquired or innate. The acquired arise either from the opinions or sects of philosophers, or from preposterous laws of demonstration; but the innate cleave to the nature of the understanding, which is found much more prone to error than the senses. For however men may amuse themselves, and admire, or almost adore the mind, it is certain, that like an irregular glass, it alters the rays of things, by its figure, and different intersections. ”

“ I mean it to be a history not only of nature free and at large (when she is left to her own course and does her work her own way) ,—such as that of the heavenly bodies, meteors, earth and sea, minerals, plants, animals,—but much more of nature under constraint and vexed; that is to say, when by art and the hand of man she is forced out of her natural state, and squeezed and moulded. ”

“ For if it were for the sake of my own reputation only and other men's interests were not concerned in it, I would not have any man think that in such cases merely some light and vague notion has crossed my mind, and that the things which I desire and offer at are no better than wishes; when they are in fact things which men may certainly command if they will, and of which I have formed in my own mind a clear and detailed conception. ”

“ For the testimony and information of the sense has reference always to man, not to the universe; and it is a great error to assert that the sense is the measure of things.
To meet these difficulties, I have sought on all sides diligently and faithfully to provide helps for the sense—substitutes to supply its failures, rectifications to correct its errors; and this I endeavour to accomplish not so much by instruments as by experiments. For the subtlety of experiments is far greater than that of the sense itself, even when assisted by exquisite instruments ”

“ For we treat not only of contemplative enjoyment, but of the common affairs and fortune of mankind, and of a complete power of action. For man, as the minister and interpreter of nature does, and understands, as much as he has observed of the order, operation, and mind of nature; and neither knows nor is able to do more. Neither is it possible for any power to loosen or burst the chain of causes, nor is nature to be overcome except by submission. ”

“ This part, therefore, will consist of such things as we have invented, experienced, or added, by the same common use of the understanding that others employ. For as we have greater hopes from our constant conversation with nature, than from our force of genius, the discoveries we shall thus make may serve as inns on the road, for the mind to repose in, during its progress to greater certainties. But this, without being at all disposed to abide by anything that is not discovered, or proved, by the true form of induction. ”

“ For as the idle tales of nurses do really corrupt the minds of children, we cannot too carefully guard the infancy of philosophy from all vanity and superstition. And when any new or more curious experiment is offered, though it may seem to us certain and well founded; yet we expressly add the manner wherein it was made; that, after it shall be understood how things appear to us, men may beware of any error adhering to them, and search after more infallible proofs. ”

“ We divide the whole of the work into six parts: the first whereof gives the substance, or general description of the knowledge which mankind at present possess; choosing to dwell a little upon things already received, that we may the easier perfect the old, and lead on to new; being equally inclined to cultivate the discoveries of antiquity, as to strike out fresh paths of science. In classing the sciences, we comprehend not only the things already invented and known, but also those omitted and wanted ”

“ Our natural history is not designed so much to please by its variety, or benefit by gainful experiments, as to afford light to the discovery of causes, and hold out the breasts to philosophy; for though we principally regard works, and the active parts of the sciences, yet we wait for the time of harvest, and would not reap the blade for the ear. ”

“ For we rush not so blindly to our object, as to neglect any thing useful on our way. We compose this fifth part of the work therefore of those matters which we have either discovered, tried, or added; without, however, employing our own method and rules for interpretation, but merely making the same use of our understanding as others are wont to do in their investigations and discoveries. For, from our constant intercourse with nature, we both anticipate greater results from our meditations than the mere strength of our wit would warrant ”

“ Having passed over the ancient arts, we will prepare the human understanding for pressing on beyond them. The object of the Second Part, then, is the doctrine touching a better and more perfect use of reasoning in the investigation of things, and the true helps of the understanding; that it may by this means be raised, as far as our human and mortal nature will admit, and be enlarged in its powers so as to master the arduous and obscure secrets of nature. ”

“ But man, when he turned to look upon the work which his hands had made, saw that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and could find no rest therein. Wherefore if we labour in thy works with the sweat of our brows thou wilt make us partakers of thy vision and thy sabbath. ”

“ We can only point them out, and note and demonstrate that insidious faculty of the mind, lest new shoots of error should happen to spring up, from the destruction of the old, on account of the mind’s defective structure; and we should then find ourselves only exchanging instead of extinguishing errors; whilst it ought on the other hand to be eternally resolved and settled, that the understanding cannot decide otherwise than by induction and by a legitimate form of it. ”

“ But when these have been completed, and it has been clearly seen what results are to be expected from the nature of things, and the nature of the human mind, we shall have then furnished a nuptial couch for the mind and the universe, the divine goodness being our bridemaid. And let it be the prayer of our Epithalamium, that assistance to man may spring from this union, and a race of discoveries, which will contribute to his wants and vanquish his miseries. ”

“ In every new and rather delicate experiment, although to us it may appear sure and satisfactory, we yet publish the method we employed, that, by the discovery of every attendant circumstance, men may perceive the possibly latent and inherent errors, and be roused to proofs of a more certain and exact nature, if such there be. ”

“ Whence the common order of demonstrating is absolutely inverted; for instead of flying immediately from the senses, and particulars, to generals, as to certain fixed poles, about which disputes always turn, and deriving others from these by intermediates, in a short, indeed, but precipitate manner, fit for controversy, but unfit to close with nature; we continually raise up propositions by degrees, and in the last place, come to the most general axioms, which are not notional, but well defined, and what nature allows of, as entering into the very essence of things. ”

“ Nor do we present the history of bodies alone, but have thought it moreover right to exert our diligence in compiling a separate history of properties: we mean those which may be called the cardinal properties of nature, and of which its very elements are composed, namely, matter with its first accidents and appetites, such as density, rarity, heat, cold, solidity, fluidity, weight, levity, and many others. ”

“ With regard to what we shall note as omitted, we shall not content ourselves with offering the mere names and concise proofs of what is deficient: for if we refer any thing to omissions, of a high nature, and the meaning of which may be rather obscure, (so that we may have grounds to suspect that men will not understand our intention, or the nature of the matter we have embraced in our conception and contemplation,) we will always take care to subjoin to an instance of the whole, some precepts for perfecting it, or perhaps a completion of a part of it by ourselves. ”

“ We protest, in the mean time, against any great value being set upon that which has not been discovered or proved by the true form of interpretation. There is no reason, however, for any one to be alarmed at such suspense of judgment in our method of teaching, which does not assert absolutely that nothing can be known, but that nothing can be known without a determined order and method ”