Novum organumSt. Louis Publishing Company, 1901 - 290 pages |
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abstract action admit ancients animals Aphorism appear apply Aristotle axioms Bacon burning-glass Carneades causes cold common compression condensed confined consider contrary deduced degree of heat Democritus diligently discovered discovery distance diurnal motion earth easily effects Empedocles error escape excited exhibit experiment fire flame form of heat glass greater heavenly bodies Heraclitus idols ignited induction inquiry interpretation of nature invention investigation iron labor Lastly laws less let the required Leucippus light liquids logic magnet mankind mass matter means metals method mind motion namely naphtha natural philosophy objects observed operation particular Philolaus plants Plato prerogative instances produced Protagoras putrefaction Pythagoras quantity quicksilver rank of prerogative rays reason regard reject required nature sciences senses separation similar solid species spirits of wine stances substances syllogism systems of philosophy tangible term theory things tion touch true truth violent warm weight wont to call
Popular passages
Page 25 - ... infinity in time past and in time to come can by no means hold; for it would thence follow that one infinity is greater than another, and that infinity is wasting away and tending to become finite. The like subtlety arises touching the infinite divisibility of lines, from the same inability of thought to stop.
Page 15 - ... proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general...
Page 22 - The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds; and although many things in nature be sui generis and most irregular, will yet invent parallels and conjugates and relatives, where no such thing is. Hence the fiction, that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, thus rejecting entirely spiral and serpentine lines (except as explanatory terms).
Page 16 - There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature.
Page 22 - For we regard all the systems of philosophy hitherto received or imagined, as so many plays brought out and performed, creating fictitious and theatrical worlds. Nor do we speak only of the present systems, or of the philosophy and sects of the ancients, since numerous other plays of a similar nature can be still composed and made to agree with each other, the causes of the most opposite errors being generally the same.
Page 12 - Even the effects already discovered are due to chance and experiment rather than to the sciences. For our present sciences are nothing more than peculiar arrangements of matters already discovered, and not methods for discovery, or plans for new operations.
Page 11 - Effects are produced by the means of instruments and helps, which the understanding requires no less than the hand. And as instruments either promote or regulate the motion of the hand, so those that are applied to the mind prompt or protect the understanding. 3. Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect.
Page 61 - The opinion which men cherish of antiquity is altogether idle, and scarcely accords with the term. For the old age and increasing years of the world should in reality be considered as antiquity, and this is rather the character of our own times than of the less advanced age of the world in those of the ancients; for the latter, with respect to ourselves, are ancient and elder, with respect to the world modern and younger.
Page 105 - It is the glory of God to conceal a thing : but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
Page 76 - The true labour of philosophy resembles hers, for it neither relies entirely or principally on the powers of the mind, nor yet lays up in the memory the matter afforded by the experiments of natural history and mechanics in its raw state, but changes and works it in the understanding.