| knowledge. Of course, Bacon argues, | we cannot get any information about | things except with the senses, and | skeptics are wrong when, questioning | them, they plunge the mind into | despair. "But by far the greatest | hindrance and aberration of the human | understanding proceeds from the | dulness, incompetency, and deceptions | of the senses" (IV, 58). On the one | hand, they are too dull and too | gross, and let the more subtle parts | of nature escape our observation: | their range is limited to the most | conspicuous information. On the other | hand, they are misleading, by a | fundamental illusion: they offer | things to the mind according to the | measure of human nature. "For it is a | false assertion that the sense of man | is the measure of things. On the | contrary, all perceptions as well of | the sense as of the mind are | according to the measure of the | individual and not according to the | measure of the universe" (IV, 54). In | order to have access to reality, we | have to rectify their information and | reduce a double delusion: the | illusion that the sensible qualities | offered by them are the real | determinations of things and the | illusion that things are divided | according to our human sensibility | (IV, 194 et sq.). | | Thus we can understand a third | critique against the old method: the