Novum organum

They who have presumed to dogmatize on nature, as on some well investigated subject, either from self-conceit or arrogance, and in the professorial style, have inflicted the gre...

XLIV. Lastly, there are idols which have crept into men’s minds from the various dogmas of peculiar systems of philosophy, and also from the perverted rules of demonstration, an...

There is a clear example of this among the Greeks, especially in Pythagoras, where, however, the superstition is coarse and overcharged, but it is more dangerous and refined in...

LXXVII. With regard to the supposition that there is a general unanimity as to the philosophy of Aristotle, because the other systems of the ancients ceased and became obsolete...

For, in the first place, one excuse, now from its repetition become familiar, is to be observed in every art, namely, that its promoters convert the weakness of the art itself i...

CIV. Nor can we suffer the understanding to jump and fly from particulars to remote and most general axioms (such as are termed the principles of arts and things), and thus prov...

But if speculative subtilties give offence, what must we say of the scholastic philosophers who indulged in them to such excess? And those subtilties were wasted on words, or, a...

[6] The Latin is, _ad ea quæ revera sunt naturæ notiora_. This expression, _naturæ notiora_, _naturæ notior_, is so frequently employed by Bacon, that we may conclude it to poin...

[51] The methods by which Newton carried the rule and compass to the boundaries of creation is a sufficient comment on the sagacity of the text. The same cause which globulizes...

Labor is well and usefully bestowed upon the anatomy of organized bodies, such as those of men and animals, which appears to be a subtile matter, and a useful examination of nat...

Here, too, we must make a more diligent inquiry; for quicklime, when sprinkled with water, appears to conceive heat, either from its being collected into one point (as we observ...

XVII. The first and almost perpetual precaution and warning which we consider necessary is this; that none should suppose from the great part assigned by us to forms, that we me...

But here we must also give an example of the danger and caution of which we spoke; for instance, it will readily occur to an understanding perverted by efficients, that air is a...

XXVIII. In the seventh rank of prerogative instances, we will place singular instances, which we are also wont to call irregular or heteroclite (to borrow a term from the gramma...

Again, let the required nature be weight. It is certainly a received classification, that dense and solid bodies are borne toward the centre of the earth, and rare and light bod...

Two kinds of instances of the cross might here be used--the one of very inflammable substances, such as sulphur and camphor, naphtha and the like, and their compounds, which tak...

We have also thought it deserving our industry, to try if we could arrive at the ratio of intangible or pneumatic bodies to tangible bodies, which we attempted by the following...

We have proved this by a more delicate experiment. We took a metal bell, of a light and thin sort, such as is used for salt-cellars, and immersed it in a basin of water, so as t...

Let the seventh be that which we term the motion of greater congregation, by which bodies are borne toward masses of a similar nature, for instance, heavy bodies toward the eart...

Let the seventeenth motion be the spontaneous motion of revolution, by which bodies having a tendency to move, and placed in a favorable situation, enjoy their peculiar nature,...

Moreover, since nature supplies cold so sparingly, we must act like the apothecaries, who, when they cannot obtain any simple ingredient, take a succedaneum, or _quid pro quo_,...

[74] Bacon means, that although there exist in nature only individualities, yet a certain number of these may have common properties, and be controlled by the same laws. Now, th...

[119] Shaw states another point of difference between the objects cited in the text--animals having their roots within, while plants have theirs without; for their lacteals near...