Transcriber’s Note
Greek text with transliteration has a dotted underline.To see the transliteration, hover your mouse over the Greek text:βιβλος.
NOVUM ORGANUM
EDITED BY JOSEPH DEVEY, M.A.
NEW YORK
P. F. COLLIER & SON
MCMII
22
SCIENCE
NOVUM ORGANUM
OR
TRUE SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE
PREFACE
They who have presumed to dogmatize on nature, as on some wellinvestigated subject, either from self-conceit or arrogance, and in theprofessorial style, have inflicted the greatest injury on philosophyand learning. For they have tended to stifle and interrupt inquiryexactly in proportion as they have prevailed in bringing others totheir opinion: and their own activity has not counterbalanced themischief they have occasioned by corrupting and destroying that ofothers. They again who have entered upon a contrary course, andasserted that nothing whatever can be known, whether they have falleninto this opinion from their hatred of the ancient sophists, or fromthe hesitation of their minds, or from an exuberance of learning, havecertainly adduced reasons for it which are by no means contemptible.They have not, however, derived their opinion from true sources,and, hurried on by their zeal and some affectation, have certainlyexceeded due moderation. But the more ancient Greeks (whose writingshave perished), held a more prudent mean, between the arrogance ofdogmatism, and the despair of scepticism; and though too frequentlyintermingling complaints and indignation[6] at the difficulty of inquiry,and the obscurity of things, and champing, as it were, the bit, havestill persisted in pressing their point, and pursuing their intercoursewith nature; thinking, as it seems, that the better method was not todispute upon the very point of the possibility of anything being known,but to put it to the test of experience. Yet they themselves, by onlyemploying the power of the understanding, have not adopted a fixedrule, but have laid their whole stress upon intense meditation, and acontinual exercise and perpetual agitation of the mind.
Our method, though difficult in its operation, is easily explained.It consists in determining the degrees of certainty, while we, as itwere, restore the senses to their former rank, but generally rejectthat operation of the mind which follows close upon the senses, andopen and establish a new and certain course for the mind from the firstactual perceptions of the senses themselves. This, no doubt, was theview taken by those who have assigned so much to logic; showing clearlythereby that they sought some support for the mind, and suspected itsnatural and spontaneous mode of action. But this is now employed toolate as a remedy, when all is clearly lost, and after the mind, bythe daily habit and intercourse of life, has come pre