THE

FIRST PART OF THE INSTAURATION,

WHICH COMPRISES THE

DIVISIONS OF THE SCIENCES,

18 WANTING.

But some account of them will be found in the Second Book of the "Proficience and Advancement of Learning,

Divine and Human."

Next comes

THE

SECOND PART OF THE INSTAURATION,

WHICH EXHIBITS

THE ART ITSELF OF INTERPRETING NATURE,

AND OF THE TRUER EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT;

Not however in the form of a regular Treatise, but only a Summary digested into Aphorisms.

THE

SECOND PART OF THE WORK,

WHICH IS CALLED

THE NEW ORGANON;

OR,

TRUE DIRECTIONS

CONCERNING

THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.

D 3

PREFACE.

THOSE who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry; and have done more harm by spoiling and putting an end to other men's efforts than good by their own. Those on the other hand who have taken a contrary course, and asserted that absolutely nothing can be known, whether it were from hatred of the ancient sophists, or from uncertainty and fluctuation of mind, or even from a kind of fulness of learning, that they fell upon this opinion,-have certainly advanced reasons for it that are not to be despised; but yet they have neither started from true principles nor rested in the just conclusion, zeal and affectation having carried them much too far. The more ancient of the Greeks (whose writings are lost) took up with better judgment a position between these two extremes,-between the presumption of pronouncing on everything, and the despair of comprehending anything; and though frequently and bitterly complaining of the difficulty of inquiry and the obscurity of things, and like impatient horses champing the bit, they did not the less follow up their object and engage with Nature; thinking (it seems) that this very question, viz. whether or no anything can be known, -was to be settled not by arguing, but by trying. And yet they too, trusting entirely to the force of their understanding, applied no rule, but made everything turn upon hard thinking and perpetual working and exercise of the mind.