Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books Part 7

[Footnote 12: "Nothing hindering."]

[Footnote 13: "That they are wise in a foolish matter."--Lactantius, _De falsa sapientia_, 3, 29.]

[Footnote 14: Augustine, _De cura pro morte_.]

[Footnote 15: "Wealth acquired without fraud."]

[Footnote 16: "O how many go down with this hope to endless labors and wars."]

[Footnote 17: Transient.]

[Footnote 18: Opponents.]

[Footnote 19: "Everything which is to come lies in uncertainty."]

[Footnote 20: "Who follow their commander with groans."]

[Footnote 21: "It takes great genius to call back the mind from the senses."]

[Footnote 22: "Against him who denies the principles."]

[Footnote 23: "Specific virtue, or power."]

[Footnote 24: "The Roman Church."]

[Footnote 25: "I shall light a lamp of understanding in thine heart."--IV. Esdras xiv. 25.]

[Footnote 26: Followers.]

[Footnote 27: "Prepared and sworn to protect with unconquered minds the opinions of the philosophers whom they follow."]

[Footnote 28: "Out of nothing."]

[Footnote 29: "Out of pre-existing matter."]

[Footnote 30: "Because comprehension is between limits, which are opposed to infinity."]

[Footnote 31: "G.o.d exhibits all things in one existence"]

[Footnote 32: "The essence of all things, visible and invisible, is divinity itself"]

[Footnote 33: "Causally."]

[Footnote 34: "Not as form, but as universal cause"]

[Footnote 35: "It [i.e., the infinite] has no beginning, but itself is perceived to be the beginning of all things, and to embrace and govern all things."]

[Footnote 36: "Primal matter."]

[Footnote 37: "Which destroys all proportion."]

[Footnote 38: "The spiritual world."]

[Footnote 39: "Providence, leader and head; Fate, in the middle and proceeding from Providence; Nature, last."]

[Footnote 40: "The science of things first, eternal, perpetual."]

[Footnote 41: "Part of the divine spirit immersed in the human body."]

[Footnote 42: "With delicate pipe."]

[Footnote 43: Moderation]

[Footnote 44: "To me one man stood for the people."]

[Footnote 45: "I [have done] this not for many, but for thee."]

[Footnote 46: "One is enough, none is enough."]

[Footnote 47: "We approve the same things, we blame the same things--this is the result in every case in which the verdict is rendered according to the majority."]

[Footnote 48: "Who glory in malice"]

PROOEMIUM, EPISTLE DEDICATORY, PREFACE, AND PLAN OF THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA, ETC.

BY FRANCIS BACON[A]

FRANCIS OF VERULAM REASONED THUS WITH HIMSELF,

AND JUDGED IT TO BE FOR THE INTEREST OF THE PRESENT AND FUTURE GENERATIONS THAT THEY SHOULD BE MADE ACQUAINTED WITH HIS THOUGHTS

Being convinced that the human intellect makes its own difficulties, not using the true helps which are at man's disposal soberly and judiciously; whence follows manifold ignorance of things, and by reason of that ignorance mischiefs innumerable; he thought all trial should be made, whether that commerce between the mind of man and the nature of things, which is more precious than anything on earth, or at least than anything that is of the earth, might by any means be restored to its perfect and original condition, or if that may not be, yet reduced to a better condition than that in which it now is. Now that the errors which have hitherto prevailed, and which will prevail forever, should (if the mind be left to go its own way), either by the natural force of the understanding or by help of the aids and instruments of Logic, one by one correct themselves, was a thing not to be hoped for: because the primary notions of things which the mind readily and pa.s.sively imbibes, stores up, and acc.u.mulates (and it is from them that all the rest flow) are false, confused, and overhastily abstracted from the facts; nor are the secondary and subsequent notions less arbitrary and inconstant; whence it follows that the entire fabric of human reason which we employ in the inquisition of nature, is badly put together and built up, and like some magnificent structure without any foundation. For while men are occupied in admiring and applauding the false powers of the mind, they pa.s.s by and throw away those true powers, which, if it be supplied with the proper aids and can itself be content to wait upon nature instead of vainly affecting to overrule her, are within its reach. There was but one course left, therefore,--to try the whole thing anew upon a better plan, and to commence a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations. And this, though in the project and undertaking it may seem a thing infinite and beyond the powers of man, yet when it comes to be dealt with it will be found sound and sober, more so than what has been done hitherto.

For of this there is some issue; whereas in what is now done in the matter of science there is only a whirling round about, and perpetual agitation, ending where it began. And although he was well aware how solitary an enterprise it is, and how hard a thing to win faith and credit for, nevertheless he was resolved not to abandon either it or himself; nor to be deterred from trying and entering upon that one path which is alone open to the human mind. For better it is to make a beginning of that which may lead to something, than to engage in a perpetual struggle and pursuit in courses which have no exit. And certainly the two ways of contemplation are much like those two ways of action, so much celebrated, in this--that the one, arduous and difficult in the beginning, leads out at last into the open country; while the other, seeming at first sight easy and free from obstruction, leads to pathless and precipitous places.

Moreover, because he knew not how long it might be before these things would occur to any one else, judging especially from this, that he has found no man hitherto who has applied his mind to the like, he resolved to publish at once so much as he has been able to complete.

The cause of which haste was not ambition for himself, but solicitude for the work; that in case of his death there might remain some outline and project of that which he had conceived, and some evidence likewise of his honest mind and inclination towards the benefit of the human race. Certain it is that all other ambition whatsoever seemed poor in his eyes compared with the work which he had in hand; seeing that the matter at issue is either nothing, or a thing so great that it may well be content with its own merit, without seeking other recompence.

[Footnote A: A sketch of Bacon's life will be found prefixed to his "Essays" in another volume of the Harvard Cla.s.sics. His "Instauratio Magna" or "Great Renewal," the great work by which he hoped to create a scientific revolution and deliver mankind from Aristotelianism, was left far from complete; but the nature of his scheme and the scale on which it was planned are indicated in these Prefaces, which are typical both of the man and of the age in which he lived.]

EPISTLE DEDICATORY