Previously Unpublished Works, Fascicle 16

by faculties which, not being well examined by us, seize us from our youth. Like a horse or a mule, we are dragged by a bit and bridle toward error, both in our method of study and in the knowledge or substance of what we study. Even the most worthy authors have written 5 and taught many things based on rumor and opinion, or mere estimation, folio 73 a, column 1 of which they had no experience. This applies to celestial things as well as lower things, to things far away and those nearby. It occurs in natural subjects as well as moral and artificial ones, and in all sciences, operations, and instruments of wisdom These are the conceptual or physical tools used to acquire knowledge, such as logic or astronomical devices.. 10 Some of these things are false, others are far too doubtful, some are obscure and tangled, and many others are useless or superfluous. Beyond this, many necessary things are missing, which must be added by their successors.

But custom binds us thirdly in error. It constrains us more forcefully because custom is a second nature, as Aristotle 15 says in his book of Problems and elsewhere. We are held by its violence, according to Aristotle in the tenth book of the Ethics, so that it is either impossible or extremely difficult to be pulled back from a customary error.

The fourth cause is the perception of the unlearned common people original: "vulgus." Bacon uses this term to refer to the uncritical masses or those lacking specialized training, regardless of social class., by which we are confirmed in falsehood. 20 For whatever is celebrated by the crowd, no matter what it is, is received as true. Even the wisest men hardly dare to mutter in opposition to the greatest falsehoods that please the crowd. Yet, from the beginning of the world and everywhere, the common crowd has been divided from the ways of the wise, such as the saints, the philosophers, and 25 other learned men.

I do not introduce at present the reasons, opinions, and examples of the wise which prove that these four things must be banished from every consideration of truth. This is because what is proper to general science should not be explained in specific sciences. Therefore, let the reader of this chapter 30 return to a higher science Bacon likely refers here to his Opus Majus, where he provides a much more detailed treatment of these four causes of error.. However, the personal experience of anyone, regarding themselves or others, is sufficient to show that anyone who does not experience how these four causes create the greatest ruin for every person, and for the multitude in this world, is worthy of punishment and grief.

Second part of the second chapter of the first distinction.

35 While these four causes pervert all science, they especially pervert mathematics. This is particularly true in the seventh section because of the most worthless and

| vainest things, and because of infinite superfluities, and because of defects folio 73 a, column 2