Bacon, Novum Organum

"Now my method, though hard to practice, is easy toe xplain; and it is this. I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty." (Preface / 33)

• retain the evidence of sense;
• reject the mental operations that follow it

logic comes to the rescue too late -- the mind in daily life is already "occupied with unsound doctrines and best on all sides by vain imaginations" (Preface / 34)

"There remains but one course for the recovery of a sound and healthy condition -- namely, that the entire work of the understanding be commenced afresh, and the mind itself be from the very outset not left to take its own course, but guided at every step; and the business be done as if by machinery." (Preface / 34)

example of moving an obelisk by hand

"let there in short be one method for the cultivation, another for the invention, of knowledge" (Preface / 36)

• Anticipation of the Mind -- "the conclusions of human reason as ordinarily applied in matters of nature" (I.XXVI)

• Interpretation of Nature -- "that reason which is elicited from facts by a just and methodical process" (I.XXVI)

ends preface by encouraging the reader to use his own methods to test him (Preface / 37)

"It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried." (I.VI)

"The syllogism consists of propositions, propositions consist of words, words are symbols of notions. Therefore if the notions themselves (which is the root of the matter) are confused and overhastily abstracted from the facts, there can be no firmness in the superstructure. Our only hope therefore lies in a true induction." (I.XIV)

"Anticipations are a ground sufficiently firm for consent, for even if men went mad all after the same fashion, they might agree one with another well enough." (I.XXVII)

"One method of delivery alone remains to use which is simply this: we must laed men to the particulars themselves, and their series and order; while men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts." (I.XXXVI)