Sylva Sylvarum (1631 English edition)

TO THE READER.

...he considered himself in a way bound; and that is, the advancement of all learning and sciences. For having collected the materials for the building in this present work, and having set down the instruments and directions for the work in his Novum Organum original: Novū Organū; Latin for "New Instrument," Bacon's famous work on the scientific method (of which his Lordship has yet to publish a second part), people will now fail themselves if they do not raise knowledge to the perfection of which the nature of mortal men is capable.

In this regard, I have heard his Lordship speak complainingly: that he (who thinks he deserves to be an architect in this building) should be forced to be a workman and a laborer—to dig the clay and burn the brick—and more than that (according to the harsh condition of the Israelites toward the end of their captivity), to gather the straw and stubble all over the fields to burn the bricks with. For he knows that unless he does it, nothing will be done; people are so inclined to despise the means of their own good.

As for the baseness humble or lowly nature of many of the experiments: as long as they are God's works, they are honorable enough. And as for their commonness original: "vulgarnesse": true axioms general principles or laws of nature must be drawn from plain experience, and not from doubtful experience. His Lordship’s method is to make wonders plain, and not to make plain things into wonders. Likewise, that experience must be broken down and ground into pieces, and not left whole, or as it grows—