Part 2 is the _Novum Organum Scientiarum_, or new method of studying the sciences, a name probably suggested by Aristotle’s _Organon_ (treatises on Logic). He intended it to be “the science of a better and more perfect use of reason in the investigation of things and of the true end of understanding.” This has been generally denominated the _inductive method_, i. e. the experimental method, from the principle of _induction_, or bringing together facts and drawing from them general principles or truths, by which the author proposes the advancement of all kinds of knowledge. In this consists preëminently the philosophy of Bacon. Not reasoning upon conjecture on the laws and properties of nature, but, as Bacon quaintly terms it, “asking questions of nature,” that is, making experiments, laboriously collecting facts first, and, after a sufficient number has been brought together, then forming systems or theories founded on them. But this work is rather the summary of a more extensive one he designed, the aphorisms of it being rather, according to Hallam, “the heads or theses of chapters.” But some of these principles are of paramount importance. An instance may be afforded of this, extracted from the “Interpretation of Nature, and Man’s dominion over it.” It is the very first sentence in the _Novum Organum_. “Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, can only understand and act in proportion as he observes and contemplates the order of nature; more, he can neither know nor do.” This, as has justly been observed, is undoubtedly the foundation of all our real knowledge. The _Novum Organum_ is so important, that we deem it desirable to present some more detailed accounts of it. The body of the work is divided into two parts; the former of which is intended to serve as an introduction to the other, a preparation of the mind for receiving the doctrine. Bacon begins by endeavoring to remove the prejudices and to obtain fair attention to his doctrine. He compares philosophy to “a vast pyramid, which ought to have the history of nature for its basis;” he likens those who strive to erect by the force of abstract speculation to the giants of old, who, according to the poets, endeavored to throw Mount Ossa upon Pelion, and Olympus upon Ossa. The method of “anticipating nature,” he denounces “as rash, hasty, and unphilosophical;” whereas, “interpretations of nature, or real truths arrived at by deduction, cannot so suddenly arrest the mind; and when the conclusion actually arrives, it may so oppose prejudice, and appear so paradoxical as to be in danger of not being received, notwithstanding the evidence that supports it, like mysteries of faith.”