Novum Organum

Novum Organum (1620) is one of the most important philosophical works by the English philosopher Francis Bacon and the second part of his grand projected plan, the Great Instauration; its full title is Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature. The title directly targets Aristotle's logical work Organon: Bacon held that the old logic, centered on syllogistic deduction, could only organize existing knowledge and provoke pointless disputes, not open new understanding for humanity. He sought to forge a "new instrument" for the intellect—an inductive method grounded in observation and experiment. The book has two volumes. The first, "Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man," is written in aphorisms and mainly criticizes the prejudices that obstruct human understanding of nature, presenting the famous doctrine of the four idols—idols of the tribe, the cave, the marketplace, and the theater—and showing how the senses, habits, language, and philosophical dogmas distort our grasp of nature; it also argues that man should be the "interpreter and servant of nature," and that the power of knowledge comes from obeying and mastering natural laws. The second volume turns to method, systematically expounding induction, whose core is the "three tables" (the table of essence or presence, the table of difference, and the table of degrees) together with the method of exclusion, aimed at guiding the intellect to discover the "forms" of things and providing a methodological program for early modern experimental science. Bacon originally planned more parts, but completed only partway through the second volume in his lifetime, so the book is formally incomplete, though its ideas had an extremely profound influence. The Chinese translation, rendered by Xu Baokui from the English edition, is elegant and rigorous in language and has long been regarded as the standard version for studying Bacon's methodology.