either on vulgar notions, or on a few experiments, or on superstition,
we must now consider the faulty subjects for contemplation, especially
in natural philosophy. The human understanding is perverted by
observing the power of mechanical arts, in which bodies are very
materially changed by composition or separation, and is induced to
suppose that something similar takes place in the universal nature
of things. Hence the fiction of elements, and their co-operation in
forming natural bodies.[29] Again, when man reflects upon the entire
liberty of nature, he meets with particular species of things, as
animals, plants, minerals, and is thence easily led to imagine that
there exist in nature certain primary forms which she strives to
produce, and that all variation from them arises from some impediment
or error which she is exposed to in completing her work, or from the
collision or metamorphosis of different species. The first hypothesis
has produced the doctrine of elementary properties, the second that
of occult properties and specific powers; and both lead to trifling
courses of reflection, in which the mind acquiesces, and is thus
diverted from more important subjects. But physicians exercise a much
more useful labor in the consideration of the secondary qualities of
things, and the operations of attraction, repulsion, attenuation,
inspissation, dilatation, astringency, separation, maturation, and the
like; and would do still more if they would not corrupt these proper
observations by the two systems I have alluded to, of elementary
qualities and specific powers, by which they either reduce the
secondary to first qualities, and their subtile and immeasurable
composition, or at any rate neglect to advance by greater and
more diligent observation to the third and fourth qualities, thus
terminating their contemplation prematurely. Nor are these powers (or
the like) to be investigated only among the medicines for the human
body, but also in all changes of other natural bodies.
A greater evil arises from the contemplation and investigation rather
of the stationary principles of things from which, than of the active
by which things themselves are created. For the former only serve for
discussion, the latter for practice. Nor is any value to be set on
those common differences of motion which are observed in the received
system of natural philosophy, as generation, corruption, augmentation,
diminution, alteration, and translation. For this is their meaning:
if a body, unchanged in other respects, is moved from its place, this
is translation; if the place and species be given, but the quantity
changed, it is alteration; but if, from such a change, the mass and
quantity of the body do not continue the same, this is the motion
of augmentation and diminution; if the change be continued so as to
vary the species and substance, and transfuse them to others, this is
generation and corruption. All this is merely popular, and by no means
penetrates into nature; and these are but the measures and bounds of
motion, and not different species of it; they merely suggest how far,
and not how or whence. For they exhibit neither the affections of
bodies nor the process of their parts, but merely establish a division
of that motion, which coarsely exhibits to the senses matter in its
varied form. Even when they wish to point out something relative to
the causes of motion, and to establish a division of them, they most
absurdly introduce natural and violent motion, which is also a popular
notion, since every violent motion is also in fact natural, that is to
say, the external efficient puts nature in action in a different manner
to that which she had previously employed.
But if, neglecting these, any one were, for instance, to observe
that there is in bodies a tendency of adhesion, so as not to suffer
the unity of nature to be completely separated or broken, and a
_vacuum_[30] to be formed, or that they have a tendency to return to
their natural dimensions or tension, so that, if compressed or extended
within or beyond it, they immediately strive to recover themselves, and
resume their former volume and extent; or that they have a tendency to
congregate into masses with similar bodies--the dense, for instance,
toward the circumference of the earth, the thin and rare toward that of
the heavens. These and the like are true physical genera of motions,
but the others are clearly logical and scholastic, as appears plainly
from a comparison of the two.
Another considerable evil is, that men in their systems and
contemplations bestow their labor upon the investigation and discussion
of the principles of things and the extreme limits of nature, although
all utility and means of action consist in the intermediate objects.
Hence men cease not to abstract nature till they arrive at potential
and shapeless matter,[31] and still persist in their dissection, till
they arrive at atoms; and yet were all this true, it would be of little
use to advance man’s estate.
LXVII. The understanding must also be cautioned against the
intemperance of systems, so far as regards its giving or withholding
its assent; for such intemperance appears to fix and perpetuate idols,
so as to leave no means of removing them.
These excesses are of two kinds. The first is seen in those who
decide hastily, and render the sciences positive and dictatorial. The
other in those who have introduced scepticism, and vague unbounded
inquiry. The former subdues, the latter enervates the understanding.
The Aristotelian philosophy, after destroying other systems (as the
Ottomans[32] do their brethren) by its disputatious confutations,
decided upon everything, and Aristotle himself then raises up questions
at will, in order to settle them; so that everything should be certain
and decided, a method now in use among his successors.
The school of Plato introduced scepticism, first, as it were in joke
and irony, from their dislike to Protagoras, Hippias,[33] and others,
who were ashamed of appearing not to doubt upon any subject. But the
new academy dogmatized in their scepticism, and held it as their tenet.
Although this method be more honest than arbitrary decision (for its
followers allege that they by no means confound all inquiry, like
Pyrrho and his disciples, but hold doctrines which they can follow as
probable, though they cannot maintain them to be true), yet when the
human mind has once despaired of discovering truth, everything begins
to languish. Hence men turn aside into pleasant controversies and
discussions, and into a sort of wandering over subjects rather than
sustain any rigorous investigation. But as we observed at first, we
are not to deny the authority of the human senses and understanding,
although weak, but rather to furnish them with assistance.
LXVIII. We have now treated of each kind of idols, and their qualities,
all of which must be abjured and renounced with firm and solemn
resolution, and the understanding must be completely freed and cleared
of them, so that the access to the kingdom of man, which is founded
on the sciences, may resemble that to the kingdom of heaven, where no
admission is conceded except to children.
LXIX. Vicious demonstrations are the muniments and support of idols,
and those which we possess in logic, merely subject and enslave the
world to human thoughts, and thoughts to words. But demonstrations
are in some manner themselves systems of philosophy and science; for
such as they are, and accordingly as they are regularly or improperly
established, such will be the resulting systems of philosophy and
contemplation. But those which we employ in the whole process leading
from the senses and things to axioms and conclusions, are fallacious
and incompetent. This process is fourfold, and the errors are in equal
number. In the first place the impressions of the senses are erroneous,
for they fail and deceive us. We must supply defects by substitutions,
and fallacies by their correction. Secondly, notions are improperly
abstracted from the senses, and indeterminate and confused when they
ought to be the reverse. Thirdly, the induction that is employed is
improper, for it determines the principles of sciences by simple
enumeration,[34] without adopting exclusions and resolutions, or just
separations of nature. Lastly, the usual method of discovery and proof,
by first establishing the most general propositions, then applying and
proving the intermediate axioms according to them, is the parent of
error and the calamity of every science. But we will treat more fully
of that which we now slightly touch upon, when we come to lay down the
true way of interpreting nature, after having gone through the above
expiatory process and purification of the mind.
LXX. But experience is by far the best demonstration, provided it
adhere to the experiment actually made, for if that experiment be
transferred to other subjects apparently similar, unless with proper
and methodical caution it becomes fallacious. The present method of
experiment is blind and stupid; hence men wandering and roaming without
any determined course, and consulting mere chance, are hurried about
to various points, and advance but little--at one time they are happy,
at another their attention is distracted, and they always find that
they want something further. Men generally make their experiments
carelessly, and as it were in sport, making some little variation
in a known experiment, and then if they fail they become disgusted
and give up the attempt; nay, if they set to work more seriously,
steadily, and assiduously, yet they waste all their time on probing
some solitary matter, as Gilbert on the magnet, and the alchemists on
gold. But such conduct shows their method to be no less unskilful than
mean; for nobody can successfully investigate the nature of any object
by considering that object alone; the inquiry must be more generally
extended.
Even when men build any science and theory upon experiment, yet they
almost always turn with premature and hasty zeal to practice, not
merely on account of the advantage and benefit to be derived from
it, but in order to seize upon some security in a new undertaking of
their not employing the remainder of their labor unprofitably, and by
making themselves conspicuous, to acquire a greater name for their
pursuit. Hence, like Atalanta, they leave the course to pick up the
golden apple, interrupting their speed, and giving up the victory. But
in the true course of experiment, and in extending it to new effects,
we should imitate the Divine foresight and order; for God on the first
day only created light, and assigned a whole day to that work without
creating any material substance thereon. In like manner we must first,
by every kind of experiment, elicit the discovery of causes and true
axioms, and seek for experiments which may afford light rather than
profit. Axioms, when rightly investigated and established, prepare
us not for a limited but abundant practice, and bring in their train
whole troops of effects. But we will treat hereafter of the ways of
experience, which are not less beset and interrupted than those of
judgment; having spoken at present of common experience only as a
bad species of demonstration, the order of our subject now requires
some mention of those external signs of the weakness in practice of
the received systems of philosophy and contemplation[35] which we
referred to above, and of the causes of a circumstance at first sight
so wonderful and incredible. For the knowledge of these external
signs prepares the way for assent, and the explanation of the causes
removes the wonder; and these two circumstances are of material use in
extirpating more easily and gently the idols from the understanding.
LXXI. The sciences we possess have been principally derived from
the Greeks; for the addition of the Roman, Arabic, or more modern
writers, are but few and of small importance, and such as they are,
are founded on the basis of Greek invention. But the wisdom of the
Greeks was professional and disputatious, and thus most adverse to
the investigation of truth. The name, therefore, of sophists, which
the contemptuous spirit of those who deemed themselves philosophers,
rejected and transferred to the rhetoricians--Gorgias,[36]
Protagoras, Hippias, Polus--might well suit the whole tribe, such
as Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, Theophrastus, and their
successors--Chrysippus, Carneades, and the rest. There was only
this difference between them--the former were mercenary vagabonds,
travelling about to different states, making a show of their wisdom,
and requiring pay; the latter more dignified and noble, in possession
of fixed habitations, opening schools, and teaching philosophy
gratuitously. Both, however (though differing in other respects), were
professorial, and reduced every subject to controversy, establishing
and defending certain sects and dogmas of philosophy, so that their
doctrines were nearly (what Dionysius not unaptly objected to Plato)
the talk of idle old men to ignorant youths. But the more ancient
Greeks, as Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus, Parmenides,
Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Philolaus, and the rest[37] (for I omit
Pythagoras as being superstitious), did not (that we are aware) open
schools, but betook themselves to the investigation of truth with
greater silence and with more severity and simplicity, that is, with
less affectation and ostentation. Hence in our opinion they acted
more advisedly, however their works may have been eclipsed in course
of time by those lighter productions which better correspond with
and please the apprehensions and passions of the vulgar; for time,
like a river,[38] bears down to us that which is light and inflated,
and sinks that which is heavy and solid. Nor were even these more
ancient philosophers free from the national defect, but inclined too
much to the ambition and vanity of forming a sect, and captivating
public opinion, and we must despair of any inquiry after truth when it
condescends to such trifles. Nor must we omit the opinion, or rather
prophecy, of an Egyptian priest with regard to the Greeks, that they
would forever remain children, without any antiquity of knowledge or
knowledge of antiquity; for they certainly have this in common with
children, that they are prone to talking, and incapable of generation,
their wisdom being loquacious and unproductive of effects. Hence the
external signs derived from the origin and birthplace of our present
philosophy are not favorable.
LXXII. Nor are those much better which can be deduced from the
character of the time and age, than the former from that of the country
and nation; for in that age the knowledge both of time and of the world
was confined and meagre, which is one of the worst evils for those who
rely entirely on experience--they had not a thousand years of history
worthy of that name, but mere fables and ancient traditions; they were
acquainted with but a small portion of the regions and countries of the
world, for they indiscriminately called all nations situated far toward
the north Scythians, all those to the west Celts; they knew nothing of
Africa but the nearest part of Ethiopia, or of Asia beyond the Ganges,
and had not even heard any sure and clear tradition of the regions of
the New World. Besides, a vast number of climates and zones, in which
innumerable nations live and breathe, were pronounced by them to be
uninhabitable; nay, the travels of Democritus, Plato, and Pythagoras,
which were not extensive, but rather mere excursions from home, were
considered as something vast. But in our times many parts of the New
World, and every extremity of the Old, are well known, and the mass of
experiments has been infinitely increased; wherefore, if external signs
were to be taken from the time of the nativity or procreation (as in
astrology), nothing extraordinary could be predicted of these early
systems of philosophy.
LXXIII. Of all signs there is none more certain or worthy than that
of the fruits produced, for the fruits and effects are the sureties
and vouchers, as it were, for the truth of philosophy. Now, from the
systems of the Greeks, and their subordinate divisions in particular
branches of the sciences during so long a period, scarcely one single
experiment can be culled that has a tendency to elevate or assist
mankind, and can be fairly set down to the speculations and doctrines
of their philosophy. Celsus candidly and wisely confesses as much,
when he observes that experiments were first discovered in medicine,
and that men afterward built their philosophical systems upon them,
and searched for and assigned causes, instead of the inverse method of
discovering and deriving experiments from philosophy and the knowledge
of causes; it is not, therefore, wonderful that the Egyptians (who
bestowed divinity and sacred honors on the authors of new inventions)
should have consecrated more images of brutes than of men, for the
brutes by their natural instinct made many discoveries, while men
derived but few from discussion and the conclusions of reason.
The industry of the alchemists has produced some effect, by chance,
however, and casualty, or from varying their experiments (as mechanics
also do), and not from any regular art or theory, the theory they have
imagined rather tending to disturb than to assist experiment. Those,
too, who have occupied themselves with natural magic (as they term it)
have made but few discoveries, and those of small import, and bordering
on imposture; for which reason, in the same manner as we are cautioned
by religion to show our faith by our works, we may very properly apply
the principle to philosophy, and judge of it by its works, accounting
that to be futile which is unproductive, and still more so if, instead
of grapes and olives, it yield but the thistle and thorns of dispute
and contention.
LXXIV. Other signs may be selected from the increase and progress of
particular systems of philosophy and the sciences; for those which are
founded on nature grow and increase, while those which are founded
on opinion change and increase not. If, therefore, the theories we
have mentioned were not like plants, torn up by the roots, but grew
in the womb of nature, and were nourished by her, that which for the
last two thousand years has taken place would never have happened,
namely, that the sciences still continue in their beaten track, and
nearly stationary, without having received any important increase,
nay, having, on the contrary, rather bloomed under the hands of their
first author, and then faded away. But we see that the case is reversed
in the mechanical arts, which are founded on nature and the light
of experience, for they (as long as they are popular) seem full of
life, and uninterruptedly thrive and grow, being at first rude, then
convenient, lastly polished, and perpetually improved.
LXXV. There is yet another sign (if such it may be termed, being
rather an evidence, and one of the strongest nature), namely, the
actual confession of those very authorities whom men now follow; for
even they who decide on things so daringly, yet at times, when they
reflect, betake themselves to complaints about the subtilty of nature,
the obscurity of things, and the weakness of man’s wit. If they would
merely do this, they might perhaps deter those who are of a timid
disposition from further inquiry, but would excite and stimulate those
of a more active and confident turn to further advances. They are
not, however, satisfied with confessing so much of themselves, but
consider everything which has been either unknown or unattempted by
themselves or their teachers, as beyond the limits of possibility,
and thus, with most consummate pride and envy, convert the defects of
their own discoveries into a calumny on nature and a source of despair
to every one else. Hence arose the New Academy, which openly professed
scepticism,[39] and consigned mankind to eternal darkness; hence the
notion that forms, or the true differences of things (which are in
fact the laws of simple action), are beyond man’s reach, and cannot
possibly be discovered; hence those notions in the active and operative
branches, that the heat of the sun and of fire are totally different,
so as to prevent men from supposing that they can elicit or form, by
means of fire, anything similar to the operations of nature; and again,
that composition only is the work of man and mixture of nature, so
as to prevent men from expecting the generation or transformation of
natural bodies by art. Men will, therefore, easily allow themselves to
be persuaded by this sign not to engage their fortunes and labor in
speculations, which are not only desperate, but actually devoted to
desperation.
LXXVI. Nor should we omit the sign afforded by the great dissension
formerly prevalent among philosophers, and the variety of schools,
which sufficiently show that the way was not well prepared that leads
from the senses to the understanding, since the same groundwork of
philosophy (namely, the nature of things), was torn and divided into
such widely differing and multifarious errors. And although in these
days the dissensions and differences of opinions with regard to first
principles and entire systems are nearly extinct,[40] yet there remain
innumerable questions and controversies with regard to particular
branches of philosophy. So that it is manifest that there is nothing
sure or sound either in the systems themselves or in the methods of
demonstration.[41]
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 on its promulgation, and
nothing better has been since discovered; whence it appears that it is
so well determined and founded, as to have united the suffrages of both
ages; we will observe--1st. That the notion of other ancient systems
having ceased after the publication of the works of Aristotle is false,
for the works of the ancient philosophers subsisted long after that
event, even to the time of Cicero, and the subsequent ages. But at a
later period, when human learning had, as it were, been wrecked in the
inundation of barbarians into the Roman empire, then the systems of
Aristotle and Plato were preserved in the waves of ages, like planks
of a lighter and less solid nature. 2d. The notion of unanimity, on
a clear inspection, is found to be fallacious. For true unanimity
is that which proceeds from a free judgment, arriving at the same
conclusion, after an investigation of the fact. Now, by far the greater
number of those who have assented to the philosophy of Aristotle,
have bound themselves down to it from prejudice and the authority
of others, so that it is rather obsequiousness and concurrence than
unanimity. But even if it were real and extensive unanimity, so far
from being esteemed a true and solid confirmation, it should even
lead to a violent presumption to the contrary. For there is no worse
augury in intellectual matters than that derived from unanimity, with
the exception of divinity and politics, where suffrages are allowed
to decide. For nothing pleases the multitude, unless it strike the
imagination or bind down the understanding, as we have observed above,
with the shackles of vulgar notions. Hence we may well transfer
Phocion’s remark from morals to the intellect: “That men should
immediately examine what error or fault they have committed, when the
multitude concurs with, and applauds them.”[42] This then is one of
the most unfavorable signs. All the signs, therefore, of the truth and
soundness of the received systems of philosophy and the sciences are
unpropitious, whether taken from their origin, their fruits, their
progress, the confessions of their authors, or from unanimity.