a beginning,
as I hope, not unimportant:--the fortune of the human race will give
the issue;--such an issue, it may be, as in the present condition of
things and men's minds cannot easily be conceived or imagined. For
the matter in hand is no mere felicity of speculation, but the real
business and fortunes of the human race, and all power of operation.
For man is but the servant and interpreter of nature: what he does and
what he knows is only what he has observed of nature's order in fact
or in thought; beyond this he knows nothing and can do nothing. For
the chain of causes cannot by any force be loosed or broken, nor can
nature be commanded except by being obeyed. And so those twin objects,
human Knowledge and human Power, do really meet in one; and it is from
ignorance of causes that operation fails.

And all depends on keeping the eye steadily fixed upon the facts
of nature and so receiving their images simply as they are. For God
forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a
pattern of the world; rather may he graciously grant to us to write an
apocalypse or true vision of the footsteps of the Creator imprinted on
his creatures.

Therefore do thou, O Father, who gavest the visible light as the
first fruits of creation, and didst breathe into the face of man the
intellectual light as the crown and consummation thereof, guard and
protect this work, which coming from thy goodness returneth to thy
glory. Thou when thou turnedst to look upon the works which thy hands
had made, sawest that all was very good, and didst rest from thy
labours. But man, when he turned to look upon the work which his hands
had made, saw that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and could
find no rest therein. Wherefore if we labour in thy works with the
sweat of our brows thou wilt make us partakers of thy vision and thy
sabbath. Humbly we pray that this mind may be steadfast in us, and
that through these our hands, and the hands of others to whom thou
shalt give the same spirit, thou wilt vouchsafe to endow the human
family with new mercies.

PREFACE

TO THE NOVUM ORGANUM

Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a
thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken
in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done
philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been
successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in
quenchi