have not the least participation of calumny or scandal: for I have not here, like Velleius in Cicero, acted the declamer, who lightly touched upon opinions, and then threw them aside, without entering into their merits; much less, done like our modern Agrippa, who, indeed, deserves not to be mentioned in a discourse of this nature; as being a trifling scoffer, that aims to wrest and make sport with every thing :* but whoever looks intently, and is qualified to see it, will find that, under the veil of a feigned severity, there are just and stinging accusations couched, contracted to a little compass, and, not without some address, thrown directly into the ulcers of the mischief. And though they all seem involved and embroiled together in the same crimes and guilt; yet I have accused each of them with that only which is peculiar to himself, and of a capital nature. For the human mind, swoln with the incursions and observations of things, works up, and draws out of them, errors of various shapes and forms: so that Aristotle, for example, appears like a tall plant, of a particular species; Plato, as another of a different kind; and so of the rest.

*I suppose the author has his eye more immediately upon that piece of Agrippa, entitled de Vanitate Scientiarum; a title as different from his own de Augmentis Scientiarum, as the two persons, and their abilities.

But for me to enter into particular confutations of their several works, would be a heinous offence, an injury to the fortunes of mankind, and consume the time, destined to their service, in a conflict with shadows; which may vanish of themselves. Indeed, the only thing required, is to set up the bright and shining light of truth; which may illuminate all the things around it; and in a moment disperse all the errors and darkness with which mankind are beset:* for it would be endless to carry weak and sickly tapers about into all the sculking holes and corners of particular errors and falsehoods.

But notwithstanding what we have said, it must not be supposed, that all which the philosophers above-mentioned have delivered, is perfectly vain and false: for there is no one of them but has sometimes stumbled upon a truth; and indeed their errors seem rather owing to their great unhappiness, than to their ignorance. When Heraclitus declared, that men ought to seek for knowledge, not in the private world of themselves, but in the common external world,

* This was the design of the Novum Organum; which the author had once entitled, Aphorismi & Consilia, de Auxiliis Mentis, & Accensione Luminis Naturalis. But as that work was left imperfect, we have only some portion of this grand light held out to us.

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he seems to have laid a just foundation for philosophy. When Democritus attributed immense variety, and infinite succession to nature, he ran counter to nearly all the other philosophers; who absolutely went down with the stream of their times; enslaved to custom: and by this opposition he destroyed both falsehoods, dashing them one against the other; and thus opening a way to truth betwixt the two extremes, he happily shewed himself a philosopher. The numbers of Pythagoras, likewise promised some good event. Dindamus the Indian spoke well, when he called death by the name of nature's enemy. Epicurus also is tolerable; though he disputes but weakly, and with philological arguments, against the explanation of intentional and final causes. Even the sceptical Pyrrho, and the fluctuating academics (though confined to scanty bounds, and behaving themselves to their idols like peevish lovers, that are always quarrelling, but never part) may be read in the way of recreation; for whilst others are made to drag their anchors, by their idols; the academics are only whirled round in their cock-boat. Nay, Paracelsus and Severinus make excellent heralds; and sound the alarm to experiments.

But shall we say that these men were in possession of truth? they were certainly far from it. It is a good homely proverb: that a hog, though

by rooting the ground he may make the first letter of the alphabet, yet cannot write a play. For the truth discovered by analogy of knowledge, is widely different from that delivered by the start of an idol: the former is regular, constant and manifold, whilst the other is incongruous, unsteady and single; and the case is the same in works. Thus the discovery of gun-powder, had it not been accidental, and a sudden start, but the effect of reasoning, would not have been single; but accompanied with a number of other noble inventions, which fall under the same meridian. Understand the like of other works and positions.* I would therefore require, if any one's idol should in any point intersect the truth of the things I have here laid down, that he be not hence conceived the better, nor I the worse of; as it is manifest this difference must proceed from ignorance, and not from any analogy of knowledge.+

After all, we hope no one will conceive our intention is to condemn the writings of the ancient and modern philosophers to the flames, or the

See this prosecuted in the first part of the Novum Organum.

+ This will not be understood, unless the doctrine of idols, delivered in the Novum Organum, be mastered.

As Mr. Hobbs is said to have done.

service of the grocer. They have still some use; though, indeed, but little, and of narrow extent; very different from that they were designed for, and are at present employed in. To this we may add, that many other writings, of less fame and note, are much more useful than those of the philosophers. The ethics of Aristotle and Plato have found numerous admirers; but the moral observations of Tacitus express nature more to the life. But for the particular uses to be made of these writings; which of them are more serviceable than others; and how small a part of them conduce to the interpretation of nature, we may shew in due time.*

It may here be asked, will the author pretend himself alone to supply the place of all the philosophers he thus censures and rejects? he answers candidly, and without dissimulation, that his sole view is to join mankind and things together, in a sacred, legitimate and inviolable link ; that from this conjunction may proceed a happy race of heroes, to subdue the infinite necessities of human nature; and settle their whole affairs in a plentiful, peaceful and happy security.†

* See the Novum Organum, Part i. passim.

+ Some readers may be at a loss to know what the author drives at in this piece; or in what sense to understand him; unless they have been conversant in the rest of his writings.