CXXX. But it is time for us to lay down the art of interpreting nature, to which we attribute no absolute necessity (as if nothing could be done without it) nor perfection, although we think that our precepts are most useful and correct. For we are of opinion, that if men had at their command a proper history of nature and experience, and would apply themselves steadily to it, and could bind themselves to two things: 1, to lay aside received opinions and notions; 2, to restrain themselves, till the proper season, from generalization, they might, by the proper and genuine exertion of their minds, fall into our way of interpretation without the aid of any art. For interpretation is the true and natural act of the mind, when all obstacles are removed: certainly, however, everything will be more ready and better fixed by our precepts. Yet do we not affirm that no addition can be made to them; on the contrary, considering the mind in its connection with things, and not merely relatively to its own powers, we ought to be persuaded that the art of invention can be made to grow with the inventions themselves. FOOTNOTES [2] Bacon uses the term in its ancient sense, and means one who, knowing the occult properties of bodies, is able to startle the ignorant by drawing out of them wonderful and unforeseen changes. See the 85th aphorism of this book, and the 5th cap. book iii. of the De Augmentis Scientiarum, where he speaks more clearly.--_Ed._ [3] By this term axiomata, Bacon here speaks of general principles, or universal laws. In the 19th aphorism he employs the term to express any proposition collected from facts by induction, and thus fitted to become the starting-point of deductive reasoning. In the last and more rigorous sense of the term, Bacon held they arose from experience. See Whewell’s “Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” vol. i. p. 74; and Mill’s “Logic,” vol. i. p. 311; and the June “Quarterly,” 1841, for the modern phase of the discussion.--_Ed._