In constituendo autem Axiomate, Forma Inductionis alia quam adhuc in usu fuit, excogitanda est; et quæ non ad Principia tantum (quæ vocant) probanda et invenienda, sed etiam ad Axiomata minora, et media, denique omnia.
Bacon, Nov. Org., Aph. civ. cv.
NOVUM ORGANON RENOVATUM.
The name Organon was applied to the works of Aristotle which treated of Logic, that is, of the method of establishing and proving knowledge, and of refuting errour, by means of Syllogisms. Francis Bacon, holding that this method was insufficient and futile for the augmentation of real and useful knowledge, published his Novum Organon, in which he proposed for that purpose methods from which he promised a better success. Since his time real and useful knowledge has made great progress, and many Sciences have been greatly extended or newly constructed; so that even if Bacon’s method had been the right one, and had been complete as far as the progress of Science up to his time could direct it, there would be room for the revision and improvement of the methods of arriving at scientific knowledge.
Inasmuch as we have gone through the Histories of the principal Sciences, from the earliest up to the present time, in a previous work, and have also traced the History of Scientific Ideas in another work, it may perhaps be regarded as not too presumptuous if we attempt this revision and improvement of the methods by which Sciences must rise and grow. This 4 is our task in the present volume; and to mark the reference of this undertaking to the work of Bacon, we name our book Novum Organon Renovatum.
Bacon has delivered his precepts in Aphorisms, some of them stated nakedly, others expanded into dissertations. The general results at which we have arrived by tracing the history of Scientific Ideas are the groundwork of such Precepts as we have to give: and I shall therefore begin by summing up these results in Aphorisms, referring to the former work for the historical proof that these Aphorisms are true.
NOVUM ORGANON RENOVATUM.