Bacon |
XXXI It is idle to expect
any great advancement in science from the superinducing and engrafting of
new things upon old. We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless
we would revolve forever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress. XXXII The honor of the
ancient authors, and indeed of all, remains untouched, since the
comparison I challenge is not of wits or faculties, but of ways and
methods, and the part I take upon myself is not that of a judge, but of a
guide. XXXIII This must be plainly
avowed: no judgment can be rightly formed either of my method or of the
discoveries to which it leads, by means of anticipations (that is to say,
of the reasoning which is now in use); since I cannot be called on to
abide by the sentence of a tribunal which is itself on trial. XXXIV Even to deliver and
explain what I bring forward is no easy matter, for things in themselves
new will yet be apprehended with reference to what is old. XXXV It was said by Borgia
of the expedition of the French into Italy, that they came with chalk in
their hands to mark out their lodgings, not with arms to force their way
in. I in like manner would have my doctrine enter quietly into the minds
that are fit and capable of receiving it; for confutations cannot be
employed when the difference is upon first principles and very notions,
and even upon forms of demonstration.
XXXVI One method of delivery
alone remains to us which is simply this: we must lead men to the
particulars themselves, and their series and order; while men on their
side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin
to familiarize themselves with facts. XXXVII The doctrine of those
who have denied that certainty could be attained at all has some agreement
with my way of proceeding at the first setting out; but they end in being
infinitely separated and opposed. For the holders of that doctrine assert
simply that nothing can be known. I also assert that not much can be known
in nature by the way which is now in use. But then they go on to destroy
the authority of the senses and understanding; whereas I proceed to devise
and supply helps for the same. XXXVIII The idols and false
notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have
taken deep root therein, not only so beset men’s minds that truth can
hardly find entrance, but even after entrance is obtained, they will again
in the very instauration of the sciences meet and trouble us, unless men
being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against
their assaults. XXXIX There are four classes
of Idols which beset men’s minds. To these for distinction’s sake I
have assigned names, calling the first class Idols of the Tribe; the
second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market Place; the
fourth, Idols of the Theater. XL The formation of ideas
and axioms by true induction is no doubt the proper remedy to be applied
for the keeping off and clearing away of idols. To point them out,
however, is of great use; for the doctrine of Idols is to the
interpretation of nature what the doctrine of the refutation of sophisms
is to common logic. XLI The Idols of the Tribe
have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of
men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of
things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the
mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to
the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false
mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the
nature of things by mingling its own nature with it. XLII The Idols of the Cave
are the idols of the individual man. For everyone (besides the errors
common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which
refracts and discolors the light of nature, owing either to his own proper
and peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation with others, or
to the reading of books, and the authority of those whom he esteems and
admires; or to the differences of impressions, accordingly as they take
place in a mind preoccupied and predisposed or in a mind indifferent and
settled; or the like. So that the spirit of man (according as it is meted
out There are also Idols
formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I
call Idols of the Market Place, on account of the commerce and consort of
men there. For it is by discourse that men associate, and words are
imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill
and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do
the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are
wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right.
But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into
confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle
fancies. XLIV Lastly, there are Idols
which have immigrated into men’s minds from the various dogmas of
philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call
Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are
but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after
an unreal and scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the systems now in vogue,
or only of the ancient sects and philosophies, that I speak; for many more
plays of the same kind may yet be composed and in like artificial manner
set forth; seeing that errors the most widely different have nevertheless
causes for the most part alike. Neither again do I mean this only of
entire systems, but also of many principles and axioms in science, which
by tradition, credulity, and negligence have come to be received. But of these several
kinds of Idols I must speak more largely and exactly, that the
understanding may be duly cautioned. XLV The human understanding
is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and
regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in
nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels
and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that
all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being
(except in name) utterly rejected. Hence too the element of fire with its
orb is brought in, to make up the square with the other three which the
sense perceives. Hence also the ratio of density of the so-called elements
is arbitrarily fixed at ten to one. And so on of other dreams. And these
fancies affect not dogmas only, but simple notions also.
XLVI The human understanding
when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion
or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and
agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of
instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and
despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order
that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its
former conclusions may remain inviolate. And therefore it was a good
answer that was made by one who, when they showed him hanging in a temple
a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck,
and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the
gods—“Aye,” asked he again, “but where are they painted that were
drowned after their vows?” And such is the way of all superstition,
whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like;
wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they
are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener,
neglect and pass them by. But with far more subtlety does this mischief
insinuate itself into philosophy and the sciences; in which the first
conclusion colors and brings into conformity with itself all that come
after, though far sounder and better. Besides, independently of that
delight and vanity which I have described, it is the peculiar and
perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by
affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself
indifferently disposed toward both alike. Indeed, in the establishment of
any true axiom, the negative instance is the more forcible of the two. XLVII The human understanding
is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind
simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it
feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see
how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded. But for that
going to and fro to remote and heterogeneous instances by which axioms are
tried as in the fire, the intellect is altogether slow and unfit, unless
it be forced thereto by severe laws and overruling authority. XLVIII The human understanding
is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain.
Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world,
but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond.
Neither, again, can it be conceived how eternity has flowed down to the
present day, for that distinction which is commonly received of infinity
in time past and in time to come can by no means hold; for it would thence
follow that one infinity is greater than another, and that infinity is
wasting away and tending to become finite. The like subtlety arises
touching the infinite divisibility of lines, from the same inability of
thought to stop. But this inability interferes more mischievously in the
discovery of causes; for although the most general principles in nature
ought to be held merely positive, as they are discovered, and cannot with
truth be referred to a cause, nevertheless the human understanding being
unable to rest still seeks something prior in the order of nature. And
then it is that in struggling toward that which is further off it falls
back upon that which is nearer at hand, namely, on final causes, which
have relation clearly to the nature of man rather than to the nature of
the universe; and from this source have strangely defiled philosophy. But
he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of
that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and
subaltern omits to do so. XLIX The human understanding
is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections;
whence proceed sciences which may be called “sciences as one would.”
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he
rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things,
because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition;
the light of experience, from arrogance and pride, lest his mind should
seem to be occupied with things mean and transitory; things not commonly
believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless, in
short, are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections
color and infect the understanding. L But by far the greatest
hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the
dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which
strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it,
though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly
ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is
little or no observation. Hence all the working of the spirits enclosed in
tangible bodies lies hid and unobserved of men. So also all the more
subtle changes of form in the parts of coarser substances (which they
commonly call alteration, though it is in truth local motion through
exceedingly small spaces) is in like manner unobserved. And yet unless
these two things just mentioned be searched out and brought to light,
nothing great can be achieved in nature, as far as the production of works
is concerned. So again the essential nature of our common air, and of all
bodies less dense than air (which are very many), is almost unknown. For
the sense by itself is a thing infirm and erring; neither can instruments
for enlarging or sharpening the senses do much; but all the truer kind of
interpretation of nature is effected by instances and experiments fit and
apposite; wherein the sense decides touching the experiment only, and the
experiment touching the point in nature and the thing itself.
LI The human understanding
is of its own nature prone to abstractions and gives a substance and
reality to things which are fleeting. But to resolve nature into
abstractions is less to our purpose than to dissect her into parts; as did
the school of Democritus, which went further into nature than the rest.
Matter rather than forms should be the object of our attention, its
configurations and changes of configuration, and simple action, and law of
action or motion; for forms are figments of the human mind, unless you
will call those laws of action forms. LII Such then are the idols
which I call Idols of the Tribe, and which take their rise either from the
homogeneity of the substance of the human spirit, or from its
preoccupation, or from its narrowness, or from its restless motion, or
from an infusion of the affections, or from the incompetency of the
senses, or from the mode of impression. LIII The Idols
of the Cave take their rise in the peculiar constitution, mental or
bodily, of each individual; and also in education, habit, and accident. Of
this kind there is a great number and variety. But I will instance those
the pointing out of which contains the most important caution, and which
have most effect in disturbing the clearness of the understanding. LIV Men become attached to
certain particular sciences and speculations, either because they fancy
themselves the authors and inventors thereof, or because they have
bestowed the greatest pains upon them and become most habituated to them.
But men of this kind, if they betake themselves to philosophy and
contemplation of a general character, distort and color them in obedience
to their former fancies; a thing especially to be noticed in Aristotle,
who made his natural philosophy a mere bond servant to his logic, thereby
rendering it contentious and well-nigh useless. The race of chemists,
again out of a few experiments of the furnace, have built up a fantastic
philosophy, framed with reference to a few things; and Gilbert also, after
he had employed himself most laboriously in the study and observation of
the loadstone, proceeded at once to construct an entire system in
accordance with his favorite subject. LV There is one principal
and as it were radical distinction between different minds, in respect of
philosophy and the sciences, which is this: that some minds are stronger
and apter to mark the differences of things, others to mark their
resemblances. The steady and acute mind can fix its contemplations and
dwell and fasten on the subtlest distinctions; the lofty and discursive
mind recognizes and puts together the finest and most general
resemblances. Both kinds, however, easily err in excess, by catching the
one at gradations, the other at shadows. LVI There are found some
minds given to an extreme admiration of antiquity, others to an extreme
love and appetite for novelty; but few so duly tempered that they can hold
the mean, neither carping at what has been well laid down by the ancients,
nor despising what is well introduced by the moderns. This, however, turns
to the great injury of the sciences and philosophy, since these
affectations of antiquity and novelty are the humors of partisans rather
than judgments; and truth is to be sought for not in the felicity of any
age, which is an unstable thing, but in the light of nature and
experience, which is eternal. These factions therefore must be abjured,
and care must be taken that the intellect be not hurried by them into
assent. LVII Contemplations of
nature and of bodies in their simple form break up and distract the
understanding, while contemplations of nature and bodies in their
composition and configuration overpower and dissolve the understanding, a
distinction well seen in the school of Leucippus and Democritus as
compared with the other philosophies. For that school is so busied with
the particles that it hardly attends to the structure, while the others
are so lost in admiration of the structure that they do not penetrate to
the simplicity of nature. These kinds of contemplation should therefore be
alternated and taken by turns, so that the understanding may be rendered
at once penetrating and comprehensive, and the inconveniences above
mentioned, with the idols which proceed from them, may be avoided. LVIII Let such then be our
provision and contemplative prudence for keeping off and dislodging the
Idols of the Cave, which grow for the most part either out of the
predominance of a favorite subject, or out of an excessive tendency to
compare or to distinguish, or out of partiality for particular ages, or
out of the largeness or minutenesS of the objects contemplated. And
generally let every student of nature take this as a rule: that whatever
his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held
in suspicion, and that so much the more care is to be taken in dealing
with such questions to keep the understanding even and clear. LIX But the Idols
of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all—idols which have
crept into the understanding through the alliances of words and names. For
men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that
words react on the understanding; and this it is that has rendered
philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Now words, being
commonly framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar,
follow those lines of division which are most obvious to the vulgar
understanding. And whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or a
more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true
divisions of nature, words stand in the way and resist the change. Whence
it comes to pass that the high and formal discussions of learned men end
oftentimes in disputes about words and names; with which (according to the
use and wisdom of the mathematicians) it would be more prudent to begin,
and so by means of definitions reduce them to order. Yet even definitions
cannot cure this evil in dealing with natural and material things, since
the definitions themselves consist of words, and those words beget others.
So that it is necessary to recur to individual instances, and those in due
series and order, as I shall say presently when I come to the method and
scheme for the formation of notions and axioms. LX The idols imposed by
words on the understanding are of two kinds. They are either names of
things which do not exist (for as there are things left unnamed through
lack of observation, so likewise are there names which result from
fantastic suppositions and to which nothing in reality corresponds), or
they are names of things which exist, but yet confused and ill-defined,
and hastily and irregularly derived from realities. Of the former kind are
Fortune, the Prime Mover, Planetary Orbits, Element of Fire, and like
fictions which owe their origin to false and idle theories. And this class
of idols is more easily expelled, because to get rid of them it is only
necessary that all theories should be steadily rejected and dismissed as
obsolete. But the other class,
which springs out of a faulty and unskillful abstraction, is intricate and
deeply rooted. Let us take for example such a word as humid and see how
far the several things which the word is used to signify agree with each
other, and we shall find the word humid to be nothing else than a mark
loosely and confusedly applied to denote a variety of actions which will
not bear to be reduced to any constant meaning. For it both signifies that
which easily spreads itself round any other body; and that which in itself
is indeterminate and cannot solidize; and that which readily yields in
every direction; and that which easily divides and scatters itself; and
that which easily unites and collects itself; and that which readily flows
and is put in motion; and that which readily clings to another body and
wets it; and that which is easily reduced to a liquid, or being solid
easily melts. Accordingly, when you come to apply the word, if you take it
in one sense, flame is humid; if in another, air is not humid; if in
another, fine dust is humid; if in another, glass is humid. So that it is
easy to see that the notion is taken by abstraction only from water and
common and ordinary liquids, without any due verification. There are, however, in
words certain degrees of distortion and error. One of the least faulty
kinds is that of names of substances, especially of lowest species and
well-deduced (for the notion of chalk and of mud is good, of earth bad); a
more faulty kind is that of actions, as to generate, to corrupt, to alter;
the most faulty is of qualities (except such as are the immediate objects
of the sense) as heavy, light, rare, dense, and the like. Yet in all these
cases some notions are of necessity a little better than others, in
proportion to the greater variety of subjects that fall within the range
of the human sense. LXI But the Idols
of the Theater are not innate, nor do they steal into the
understanding secretly, but are plainly impressed and received into the
mind from the playbooks of philosophical systems and the perverted rules
of demonstration. To attempt refutations in this case would be merely
inconsistent with what I have already said, for since we agree neither
upon principles ncr upon demonstrations there is no place for argument.
And this is so far well, inasmuch as it leaves the honor of the ancients
untouched. For they are no wise disparaged—the question between them and
me being only as to the way. For as the saying is, the lame man who keeps
the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. Nay, it is
obvious that when a man runs the wrong way, the more active and swift he
is, the further he will go astray. But the course I
propose for the discovery of sciences is such as leaves but little to the
acuteness and strength of wits, but places all wits and understandings
nearly on a level. For as in the drawing of a straight line or a perfect
circle, much depends on the steadiness and practice of the hand, if it be
done by aim of hand only, but if with the aid of rule or compass, little
or nothing; so is it exactly with my plan. But though particular
confutations would be of no avail, yet touching the sects and general
divisions of such systems I must say something; something also touching
the external signs which show that they are unsound; and finally something
touching the causes of such great infelicity and of such lasting and
general agreement in error; that so the access to truth may be made less
diflicult, and the human understanding may the more willingly submit to
its purgation and dismiss its idols. LXII Idols of the Theater,
or of Systems, are many, and there can be and perhaps will be yet many
more. For were it not that now for many ages men’s minds have been
busied with religion and theology; and were it not that civil governments,
especially monarchies, have been averse to such novelties, even in matters
speculative; so that men labor therein to the peril and harming of their
fortunes—not only unrewarded, but exposed also to contempt and
envy—doubtless there would have arisen many other philosophical sects
like those which in great variety flourished once among the Greeks. For as
on the phenomena of the heavens many hypotheses may be constructed, so
likewise (and more also) many various dogmas may be set up and established
on the phenomena of philosophy. And in the plays of this philosophical
theater you may observe the same thing which is found in the theater of
the poets, that stories invented for the stage are more compact and
elegant, and more as one would wish them to be, than true stories out of
history. In general, however,
there is taken for the material of philosophy either a great deal out of a
few things, or a very little out of many things; so that on both sides
philosophy is based on too narrow a foundation of experiment and natural
history, and decides on the authority of too few cases. For the Rational
School of philosophers snatches from experience a variety of common
instances, neither duly ascertained nor diligently examined and weighed,
and leaves all the rest to meditation and agitation of wit. There is also another
class of philosophers who, having bestowed much diligent and careful labor
on a few experiments, have thence made bold to educe and construct
systems, wresting all other facts in a strange fashion to conformity
therewith. And there is yet a
third class, consisting of those who out of faith and veneration mix their
philosophy with theology and traditions; among whom the vanity of some has
gone so far aside as to seek the origin of sciences among spirits and
genii. So that this parent stock of errors—this false philosophy—is of
three kinds: the Sophistical, the Empirical, and the Superstitious. LXIII The most conspicuous
example of the first class was Aristotle, who corrupted natural philosophy
by his logic: fashioning the world out of categories; assigning to the
human soul, the noblest of substances, a genus from words of the second
intention; doing the business of density and rarity (which is to make
bodies of greater or less dimensions, that is, occupy greater or less
spaces), by the frigid distinction of act and power; asserting that single
bodies have each a single and proper motion, and that if they participate
in any other, then this results from an external cause; and imposing
countless other arbitrary restrictions on the nature of things; being
always more solicitous to provide an answer to the question and affirm
something positive in words, than about the inner truth of things; a
failing best shown when his philosophy is compared with other systems of
note among the Greeks. For the homoeomera of Anaxagoras; the Atoms of
Leucippus and Democritus; the Heaven and Earth of Parmenides; the Strife
and Friendship of Empedocles; Heraclitus’ doctrine how bodies are
resolved into the indifferent nature of fire, and remolded into solids,
have all of them some taste of the natural philosopher—some savor of the
nature of things, and expericnce, and bodies; whereas in the physics of
Aristotle you hear hardly anything but the words of logic, which in his
metaphysics also, under a more imposing name, and more forsooth as a
realist than a nominalist, he has handled over again. Nor let any weight
be given to the fact that in his books on animals and his problems, and
other of his treatises, there is frequent dealing with experiments. For he
had come to his conclusion before; he did not consult experience, as he
should have done, for the purpose of framing his decisions and axioms, but
having first determined the question according to his will, he then
resorts to experience, and bending her into conformity with his placets,
leads her about like a captive in a procession. So that even on this count
he is more guilty than his modern followers, the schoolmen, who have
abandoned experience altogether. LXIV But the Empirical
school of philosophy gives birth to dogmas more deformed and monstrous
than the Sophistical or Rational school. For it has its foundations not in
the light of common notions (which though it be a faint and superficial
light, is yet in a manner universal, and has reference to many things),
but in the narrowness and darkness of a few experiments. To those
therefore who are daily busied with these experiments and have infected
their imagination with them, such a philosophy seems probable and all but
certain; to alI men else incredible and vain. Of this there is a notable
instance in the alchemists and their dogmas, though it is hardly to be
found elsewhere in these times, except perhaps in the philosophy of
Gilbert. Nevertheless, with regard to philosophies of this kind there is
one caution not to be omitted; forI foresee that if ever men are roused by
my admonitions to betake themselves seriously to experiment and bid
farewell to sophistical doctrines, then indeed through the premature hurry
of the understanding to leap or fly to universals and principles of
things, great danger may be apprehended from philosophies of this kind,
against which evil we ought even now to prepare. LXV But the corruption of
philosophy by superstition and an admixture of theology is far more widely
spread, and does the greatest harm, whether to entire systems or to their
parts. For the human understanding is obnoxious to the influence of the
imagination no less than to the influence of common notions. For the
contentious and sophistical kind of philosophy ensnares the understanding;
but this kind, being fanciful and tumid and half poetical, misleads it
more by flattery. For there is in man an ambition of the understanding, no
less than of the will, especially in high and lofty spirits. Of this kind we have
among the Greeks a striking example in Pythagoras, though he united with
it a coarser and more cumbrous superstition; another in Plato and his
school, more dangerous and subtle. It shows itself likewise in parts of
other philosophies, in the introduction of abstract forms and final causes
and first causes, with the omission in most cases of causes intermediate,
and the like. Upon this point the greatest caution should be used. For
nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error; and it is a very
plague of the understanding for vanity to become the object of veneration.
Yet in this vanity some of the moderns have with extreme levity indulged
so far as to attempt to found a system of natural philosophy on the first
chapter of Genesis, on the book of Job, and other parts of the sacred
writings, seeking for the dead among the living; which also makes the
inhibition and repression of it the more important, because from this
unwholesome mixture of things human and divine there arises not only a
fantastic philosophy but also a heretical religion. Very meet it is
therefore that we be sober-minded, and give to faith that only which is
faith’s. LXVI So much, then, for the
mischievous authorities of systems, which are founded either on common
notions, or on a few experiments, or on superstition. It remains to speak
of the faulty subject matter of contemplations, especially in natural
philosophy. Now the human understanding is infected by the sight of what
takes place in the mechanical arts, in which the alteration of bodies
proceeds chiefly by composition or separation, and so imagines that
something similar goes on in the universal nature of things. From this
source has flowed the fiction of elements, and of their concourse for the
formation of natural bodies. Again, when man contemplates nature working
freely, he meets with different species of things, of animals, of plants,
of minerals; whence he readily passes into the opinion that there are in
nature certain primary forms which nature intends to educe, and that the
remaining variety proceeds from hindrances and aberrations of nature in
the fulfillment of her work, or from the collision of different species
and the transplanting of one into another. To the first of these
speculations we owe our primary qualities of the elements; to the other
our occult properties and specific virtues; and both of them belong to
those empty compendia of thought wherein the mind rests, and whereby it is
diverted from more solid pursuits. It is to better purpose that the
physicians bestow their labor on the secondary qualities of matter, and
the operations of attraction, repulsion, attenuation, conspissation,
dilatation, astriction, dissipation, maturation, and the like; and were it
not that by those two compendia which I have mentioned (elementary
qualities, to wit, and specific virtues) they corrupted their correct
observations in these other matters—either reducing them to first
qualities and their subtle and incommensurable mixtures, or not following
them out with greater and more diligent observations to third and fourth
qualities, but breaking off the scrutiny prematurely—they would have
made much greater progress. Nor are powers of this kind (I do not say the
same, but similar) to be sought for only in the medicines of the human
body, but also in the changes of all other bodies. But it is a far greater
evil that they make the quiescent principles, wherefrom,
and not the moving principles, whereby,
things are produced, the object of their contemplation and inquiry. For
the former tend to discourse, the latter to works. Nor is there any value
in those vulgar distinctions of motion which are observed in the received
system of natural philosophy, as generation, corruption, augmentation,
diminution, alteration, and local motion. What they mean no doubt is this:
if a body in other respects not changed be moved from its place, this
is local motion; if without change of place or essence, it be changed
in quality, this is alteration; if by reason of the change the mass and
quantity of the body do not remain the same, this is augmentation or
diminution; if they be changed to such a degree that they change their
very essence and substance and turn to something else, this is generation
and corruption. But all this is
merely popular, and does not at all go deep into nature; for these are
only measures and limits, not kinds of motion. What they intimate is how
far, not by what means, or from what
source. For they do not suggest anything with regard either to the
desires of bodies or to the development of their parts. It is only when
that motion presents the thing grossly and palpably to the sense as
different from what it was that they begin to mark the division. Even when
they wish to suggest something with regard to the causes of motion, and to
establish a division with reference to them, they introduce with the
greatest negligence a distinction between motion natural and violent, a
distinction which is itself drawn entirely from a vulgar notion, since all
violent motion is also in fact natural; the external efficient simply
setting nature working otherwise than it was before. But if, leaving all
this, anyone shall observe (for instance) that there is in bodies a desire
of mutual contact, so as not to suffer the unity of nature to be quite
separated or broken and a vacuum thus made; or if anyone say that there is
in bodies a desire of resuming their natural dimensions or tension, so
that if compressed within or extended beyond them, they immediately strive
to recover themselves, and fall back to their old volume and extent; or if
anyone say that there is in bodies a desire of congregating toward masses
of kindred nature—of dense bodies, for instance, toward the globe of the
earth, of thin and rare bodies toward the compass of the sky; all these
and the like are truly physical kinds of motion—but those others are
entirely logical and scholastic, as is abundantly manifest from this
comparison. Nor again is it a
lesser evil that in their philosophies and contemplations their labor is
spent in investigating and handling the first principles of things and the
highest generalities of nature; whereas utility and the means of working
result entirely from things intermediate. Hence it is that men cease not
from abstracting nature till they come to potential and uninformed matter,
nor on the other hand from dissecting nature till they reach the atom;
things which, even if true, can do but little for the welfare of mankind. LXVII A caution must also be
given to the understanding against the intemperance which systems of
philosophy manifest in giving or withholding assent, because intemperance
of this kind seems to establish idols and in some sort to perpetuate them,
leaving no way open to reach and dislodge them. This excess is of two
kinds: the first being manifest in those who are ready in deciding, and
render sciences dogmatic and magisterial; the other in those who deny that
we can know anything, and so introduce a wandering kind of inquiry that
leads to nothing; of which kinds the former subdues, the latter weakens
the understanding. For the philosophy of Aristotle, after having by
hostile confutations destroyed all the rest (as the Ottomans serve their
brothers), has laid down the law on all points; which done, he proceeds
himself to raise new questions of his own suggestion, and dispose of them
likewise, so that nothing may remain that is not certain and decided; a
practice which holds and is in use among his successors. The school of Plato, on
the other hand, introduced Acatalepsia,
at first in jest and irony, and in disdain of the older sophists,
Protagoras, Hippias, and the rest, who were of nothing else so much
ashamed as of seeming to doubt about anything. But the New Academy made a
dogma of it, and held it as a tenet. And though theirs is a fairer seeming
way than arbitrary decisions, since they say that they by no means destroy
all investigation, like Pyrrho and his Refrainers, but allow of some
things to be followed as probable, though of none to be maintained as
true; yet still when the human mind has once despaired of finding truth,
its interest in all things grows fainter, and the result is that men turn
aside to pleasant disputations and discourses and roam as it were from
object to object, rather than keep on a course of severe inquisition. But,
as I said at the beginning and am ever urging, the human senses and
understanding, weak as they are, are not to be deprived of their
authority, but to be supplied with helps. LXVIII So much concerning the
several classes of Idols and their equipage; all of which must be
renounced and put away with a fixed and solemn determination, and the
understanding thoroughly freed and cleansed; the entrance into the kingdom
of man, founded on the sciences, being not much other than the entrance
into the kingdom of heaven, whereinto none may enter except as a little
child.
LXIX But vicious
demonstrations are as the strongholds and defenses of idols; and those we
have in logic do little else than make the world the bondslave of human
thought, and human thought the bondslave of words. Demonstrations truly
are in effect the philosophies themselves and the sciences. For such as they
are, well or ill established, such are the systems of philosophy and the
contemplations which follow. Now in the whole of the process which leads
from the sense and objects to axioms and conclusions, the demonstrations
which we use are deceptive and incompetent. This process consists of four
parts, and has as many faults. In the first place, the impressions of the
sense itself are faulty; for the sense both fails us and deceives us. But
its shortcomings are to be supplied, and its deceptions to be corrected.
Secondly, notions are ill-drawn from the impressions of the senses, and are
indefinite and confused, whereas they should be definite and distinctly
bounded. Thirdly, the induction is amiss which infers the principles of
sciences by simple enumeration, and does not, as it ought, employ
exclusions and solutions (or separations) of nature. Lastly, that method
of discovery and proof according to which the most general principles are
first established, and then intermediate axioms are tried and proved by
them, is the parent of error and the curse of all science. Of these
things, however, which now I do but touch upon, I will speak more largely
when, having performed these expiations and purgings of the mind, I come
to set forth the true way for the interpretation of nature. LXX But the best
demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual
experiment. For if it be transferred to other cases which are deemed
similar, unless such transfer be made by a just and orderly process, it is
a fallacious thing. But the manner of making experiments which men now use
is blind and stupid. And therefore, wandering and straying as they do with
no settled course, and taking counsel only from things as they fall out,
they fetch a wide circuit and meet with many matters, but make little
progress; and sometimes are full of hope, sometimes are distracted; and
always find that there is something beyond to be sought. For it generally
happens that men make their trials carelessly, and as it were in play;
slightly varying experiments already known, and, if the thing does not
answer, growing weary and abandoning the attempt. And even if they apply
themselves to experiments more seriously and earnestly and laboriously,
still they spend their labor in working out some one experiment, as
Gilbert with the magnet, and the chemists with gold; a course of
proceeding not less unskillful in the design than small in the attempt.
For no one successfully investigates the nature of a thing in the thing
itself; the inquiry must be enlarged so as to become more general. And even when they seek
to educe some science or theory from their experiments, they nevertheless
almost always turn aside with overhasty and unseasonable eagerness to
practice; not only for the sake of the uses and fruits of the practice,
but from impatience to obtain in the shape of some new work an assurance
for themselves that it is worth their while to go on; and also to show
themselves off to the world, and so raise the credit of the business in
which they are engaged. Thus, like Atalanta, they go aside to pick up the
golden apple, but meanwhile they interrupt their course, and let the
victory escape them. But in the true course of experience, and in carrying
it on to the effecting of new works, the divine wisdom and order must be
our pattern. Now God on the first day of creation created light only,
giving to that work an entire day, in which no material substance was
created. So must we likewise from experience of every kind first endeavor
to discover true causes and axioms; and seek for experiments of Light, not
for experiments of Fruit. For axioms rightly discovered and established
supply practice with its instruments, not one by one, but in clusters, and
draw after them trains and troops of works. Of the paths, however, of
experience, which no less than the paths of judgment are impeded and
beset, I will speak hereafter; here I have only mentioned ordinary
experimental research as a bad kind of demonstration. But now the order of
the matter in hand leads me to add something both as to those signs which
I lately mentioned (signs that the systems of philosophy and contemplation
in use are in a bad condition), and also as to the causes of what seems at
first so strange and incredible. For a knowledge of the signs prepares
assent; an explanation of the causes removes the marvel —which two
things will do much to render the extirpation of idols from the
understanding more easy and gentle. LXXI The sciences which we
possess come for the most part from the Greeks. For what has been added by
Roman, Arabic, or later writers is not much nor of much importance; and
whatever it is, it is built on the foundation of Greek discoveries. Now
the wisdom of the Greeks was professorial and much given to disputations,
a kind of wisdom most adverse to the inquisition of truth. Thus that name
of Sophists, which by those who would be thought philosophers was in
contempt cast back upon and so transferred to the ancient rhetoricians,
Gorgias, Protagoras, Hippias, Polus, does indeed suit the entire class:
Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, Theophrastus, and their successors
Chrysippus, Carneades, and the rest. There was this difference only, that
the former class was wandering and mercenary, going about from town to
town, putting up their wisdom to sale, and taking a price for it, while
the latter was more pompous and dignified, as composed of men who had
fixed abodes, and who opened schools and taught their philosophy without
reward. Still both sorts, though in other respects unequal, were
professorial; both turned the matter into disputations, and set up and
battled for philosophical sects and heresies; so that their doctrines were
for the most part (as Dionysius not unaptly rallied Plato) “the talk of
idle old men to ignorant youths.” But the elder of the Greek
philosophers, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus, Parmenides,
Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Philolaus, and the rest (I omit Pythagoras as a
mystic), did not, so far as we know, open schools; but more silently and
severely and simply—that is, with less affectation and parade—betook
themselves to the inquisition of truth. And therefore they were in my
judgment more successful; only that their works were in the course of time
obscured by those slighter persons who had more which suits and pleases
the capacity and tastes of the vulgar; time, like a river, bringing down
to us things which are light and puffed up, but letting weighty matters
sink. Still even they were not altogether free from the failing of their
nation, but leaned too much to the ambition and vanity of founding a sect
and catching popular applause. But the inquisition of truth must be
despaired of when it turns aside to trifles of this kind. Nor should we
omit that judgment, or rather divination, which was given concerning the
Greeks by the Egyptian priest—that “they were always boys, without
antiquity of knowledge or knowledge of antiquity.” Assuredly they have
that which is characteristic of boys: they are prompt to prattle, but
cannot generate; for their wisdom abounds in words but is barren of works.
And therefore the signs which are taken from the origin and birthplace of
the received philosophy are not good. LXXII Nor does the character
of the time and age yield much better signs than the character of the
country and nation. For at that period there was but a narrow and meager
knowledge either of time or place, which is the worst thing that can be,
especially for those who rest all on experience. For they had no history
worthy to be called history that went back a thousand years—but only
fables and rumors of antiquity. And of the regions and districts of the
world they knew but a small portion, giving indiscriminately the name of
Scythians to all in the North, of Celts to all in the West; knowing
nothing of Africa beyond the hither side of Ethiopia, of Asia beyond the
Ganges. Much less were they acquainted with the provinces of the New
World, even by hearsay or any well-founded rumor; nay, a multitude of
climates and zones, wherein innumerable nations breathe and live, were
pronounced by them to be uninhabitable; and the travels of Democritus,
Plato, and Pythagoras, which were rather suburban excursions than distant
journeys, were talked of as something great. In our times, on the other
hand, both many parts of the New World and the limits on every side of the
Old World are known, and our stock of experience has increased to an
infinite amount. Wherefore if (like astrologers) we draw signs from the
season of their nativity or birth, nothing great can be predicted of those
systems of philosophy. |
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