Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/86

lxxviii of idols, or modes by which the judgment is warped from the truth. 2dly. By considering facts on both sides; as if the inquiry be into the nature of heat, by considering all the affirmative and negative instances of heat.

3dly. By explaining the mode in which the facts presented to the senses ought by certain rules to be examined.

As the commander of an army, before he commences an attack, considers the strength and number of his troops, both regular and allies; the spirit by which they are animated, whether they are the lion, or the sheep in the lion's skin; the power of the enemy to which he is opposed: their walled towns, their stored arsenals and armories, their horses and chariots of war, elephants, ordnance and artillery, and their races of men; and then in what mode he shall commence his attack and proceed in the battle: so, before man directs his strength against nature, and endeavours to take her high towers and dismantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the borders of his dominion, he ought duly to estimate,

Of these four requisites, therefore, a perfect work upon the conduct of the understanding ought, as it seems, to consist: but the Novum Organum is not thus treated. To system Bacon was not attached: for "As young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a farther stature, so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations, it is in growth; but when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it may perchance be farther polished and illustrated, and accommodated for use and practice; but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.

Instead of explaining our different powers, our tenses, our Imagination, our Reason, there are in the Novum Organum only some scattered observations upon the defects of the senses;—upon the different causes or idols by which the judgment is alwayc liable to be warped, and some suggestions as to the artificial helps to our natural powers in exploring the truths which are exhibited to the senses.

With respect to the defects of the senses, he says that things escape their cognisance by seven modes:

The defects of the judgment he investigates in a more laborious inquiry. "There are," he says, "certain predispositions which beset the mind of man; certain idols which are constantly operating upon the mind and warping it from the truth; for the mind of man, drawn over and clouded with the sable pavilion of the body, is so far from being like smooth, equal, and clear glass, which might sincerely take and reflect the beams of things according to their true incidence, that it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstitions, apparitions, and impostures; which idols are of such a pernicious nature, that, if they once take root in the mind, they will so possess it that truth can hardly find entrance; and, even should it enter, they will again rise up, choke, and destroy it." These idols are of two sorts: 1st. Common to all men, therefore called Idols of the Tribe, including the defects of words, called Idols of the Market; 2d. Peculiar to peculiar individuals, either from their original conformation, or from their education and pursuits in life, called Idols of the Den, including the errors from particular opinions, called Idols of the Theatre. So that his doctrine of idols may be thus exhibited:

The Idols of the Tribe, or warps to the judgment,