thority justify it; who, not servilely thinking learning could not be advanced beyond what it was, because for many ages it had not been, did not rest in the lazy approbation and applause of what was, because it was, but enlarged his mind to what it might be. In his preface to his Novum Organum, concerning logic, he pronounces thus: “Qui summas[1] dialecticæ partes tribuerunt, atque inde fidissima scientiis præsidia comparari putârunt, verissimè et optimè viderunt intellectum humanum, sibi permissum, meritò suspectum esse debere. Verum infimior omninò est malo medicina; nec ipsa mali expers. Siquidem dialectica, quæ recepta est, licet ad civilia et artes, que in sermone et opinione positœ sunt, rectissimè adhibeatur; naturœ tamen subtilitatem longo intervallo mon attingit, et prensando quod non capit, ad errores potius stabiliendos et quasi figendos, quam ad viam veritati aperiendam valuit.”
“They,” says he, “who attribute so much to logic, perceived very well and truly that it was not safe to trust the understanding to itself without the guard of any rules. But the remedy reached not the evil, but became a part of it, for the logic which took place, though it might do well enough in civil affairs and the arts, which consisted in talk and opinion, yet comes very far short of subtlety in the real performances of nature; and, catching at what it cannot reach, has served to confirm and establish errors, rather than to open a way to truth.” And therefore a little after he
- ↑ Qui summas, etc. This quotation is not, as stated, from the preface to the “Novum Organum,” but from that to the “Instauratio Magna,” of which the “Novum Organum” was intended to be a part.
