Novum Organum



The Novum Organum (New Organon) was the second (and the only somewhat complete) part of Sir Francis Bacon's Instauratio Magna, published in England in 1620. Because nearly nothing of the other five parts was printed in the Instauratio, the whole is often known by the name of the dominant part. In the pocket-sized 1650 edition (pictured right) the name was Novum Organum Scientiarum (New Organon of the Sciences).

There were four complete translations done in the 19th century. Three of them, in reverse chronological order, are linked below. (The fourth was The Novum organon, or a true guide to the interpretation of nature, trans. G. W. Kitchin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1855.)

The Spedding edition printed in London (the first translation linked below) is generally the standard for scholarly citation, but citation by section, book, and aphorism, instead of volume and page, is frequently more useful and now widely accepted. 

Instauratio Magna, translated by William Wood, edited by Basil Montagu (1831)
Nouvel Organum Novum Organum