lps was to be supplied, by the use of which the mind, when placed on the
right road, would proceed with unerring and mechanical certainty to the
invention of new arts and sciences.

Such were to be the peculiar functions of the new method, though it has not
definitely appeared what that method was, or to what objects it could be
applied. But, before proceeding to unfold his method, Bacon found it
necessary to enter in considerable detail upon the general subject of the
obstacles to progress, and devoted nearly the whole of the first book of
the _Organum_ to the examination of them. This discussion, though strictly
speaking extraneous to the scheme, has always been looked upon as a most
important part of his philosophy, and his name is perhaps as much
associated with the doctrine of Idols (_Idola_) as with the theory of
induction or the classification of the sciences.

The doctrine of the kinds of fallacies or general classes of errors into
which the human mind is prone to fall, appears in many of the works written
before the _Novum Organum_, and the treatment of them varies in some
respects. The classification in the _Organum_, however, not only has the
author's sanction, but has received the stamp of historical acceptation;
and comparison of the earlier notices, though a point of literary interest,
has no important philosophic bearing. The _Idola_ (_Nov. Org._ i. 39)[58]
false notions of things, or erroneous ways of looking at nature, are of
four kinds: the first two innate, pertaining to the very nature of the mind
and not to be eradicated; the third creeping insensibly into men's minds,
and hence in a sense innate and inseparable; the fourth imposed from
without. The first kind are the _Idola Tribus_, idols of the tribe,
fallacies incident to humanity or the race in general. Of these, the most
prominent are--the proneness to suppose in nature greater order and
regularity than there actually is; the tendency to support a preconceived
opinion by affirmative instances, neglecting all negative or opposed cases;
and the tendency to generalize from few observations, or to give reality to
mere abstractions, figments of the mind. Manifold errors also result from
the weakness of the senses, which affords scope for mere conjecture; from
the influence exercised over the understanding by the will and passions;
from the restless desire of the mind to penetrate to the ultimate
principles of things; and from the belief that "man is