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nydus/Novum organumPublic

Francis Bacon critiques the limitations of both dogmatic philosophy and extreme skepticism in their approaches to understanding nature. He proposes a new method that prioritizes sensory perception and establishes a structured, certain path for the mind to follow.

Page 132 of 375
Table of Contents

APHORISMS—BOOK II ON THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE, OR THE REIGN OF MAN

    1. Manures, such as every kind of dung, chalk, sea-sand, salt and the like, have some disposition toward heat.
    1. All putrefaction exhibits some slight degree of heat, though not enough to be perceptible by the touch; for neither the substances which by putrefaction are converted into animalculæ,95 as flesh and cheese, nor rotten wood which shines in the dark, are warm to the touch. The heat, however, of putrid substances displays itself occasionally in a disgusting and strong scent.
    1. The first degree of heat, therefore, in substances which are warm to the human touch appears to be that of animals, and this admits of a great variety of degrees, for the lowest (as in insects) is scarcely perceptible, the highest scarcely equals that of the sun’s rays in warm climates and weather, and is not so acute as to be insufferable to the hand. It is said, however, of Constantius, and some others of a very dry constitution and habit of body, that when attacked with violent fevers, they became so warm as to appear almost to burn the hand applied to them.
    1. Animals become more warm by motion and exercise, wine and feasting, venery, burning fevers, and grief.
    1. In the paroxysm of intermittent fevers the patients are at first seized with cold and shivering, but soon afterward become more heated than at first—in burning and pestilential fevers they are hot from the beginning.
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