The Idols of the Den

⁵³ The idols of the den come from the peculiar nature of each individual’s:

• mind and body
• education
• habit
• accident

These:

• require the greatest caution and
• exert the greatest power in polluting the understanding.

⁵⁴ Some men become attached to particular sciences and contemplations, either:

• from supposing themselves the authors and inventors of them, or
• from having bestowed the greatest pains upon such subjects, and thus become most habituated to them.[22]

If such men apply themselves to philosophy and contemplations of a universal[29] nature, they wrest and corrupt them by their preconceived fancies.

Aristotle is an good example of this.

• He made his natural philosophy completely subservient to his logic, and thus rendered it useless and disputatious.

The chemists have formed a fanciful philosophy with the most confined views, from a few experiments of the furnace. Gilbert,[23] too, having employed himself most assiduously in the consideration of the magnet, immediately established a system of philosophy to coincide with his favorite pursuit.

⁵⁵ The greatest and most radical distinction between different men’s dispositions for philosophy and the sciences is that some are more vigorous and active in observing the differences of things, others in observing their resemblances;

A steady and acute disposition can fix its thoughts, and dwell on a point, through all the refinements of differences

But the sublime and discursive recognize and compare even the most delicate and general resemblances.

Each of them readily falls into excess, by catching either at nice distinctions or shadows of resemblance.

⁵⁶ Some dispositions have an unbounded admiration of antiquity.

• Others eagerly embrace new ideas.
• Few can go between both, neither tearing up[30] what the ancients have correctly laid down, nor to despising the just modern innovations.

But this is very prejudicial to the sciences and philosophy. Instead of a correct judgment, we get factions of the ancients and moderns.

Truth is not to be sought in the good fortune of any particular conjuncture of time, which is uncertain, but in the light of nature and experience, which is eternal. Such factions, therefore, are to be abjured, and the understanding must not allow them to hurry it on to assent.

⁵² The contemplation of nature and of bodies in their individual form distracts and weakens the understanding.

But the contemplation of nature and of bodies in their general composition and formation stupefies and relaxes it.

We have a good instance of this in the school of Leucippus and Democritus compared with others, for they applied themselves so much to particulars as almost to neglect the general structure of things, while the others were so astounded while gazing on the structure that they did not penetrate the simplicity of nature.

These 2 kinds of contemplation must, therefore, be interchanged.

• Each must be employed in its turn, in order to:
  • render the understanding more penetrating and capacious, and
  • avoid the inconveniences and the idols that result from them.

⁵⁸ Let such, therefore, be our precautions in contemplation, that we may ward off and expel the idols of the den, which mostly owe their birth either to some predominant pursuit, or, secondly, to an excess in synthesis and analysis, or, thirdly, to a party zeal in favor of certain ages, or, fourthly, to the extent or narrowness of the subject.

In general, he who contemplates nature should suspect whatever particularly takes and fixes his understanding,[31] and should use so much the more caution to preserve it equable and unprejudiced.