Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum: A Latin-English Summary (Part 1)
Don’t have time to read this classic, but still want to enjoy the author’s own words? This summary is for you.
To begin with: Why should you care about the Novum Organum? In this milestone of science, the Englishman Francis Bacon for the first time in history gave a full account of the scientific method. Published in the year 1620 in Latin, the work pioneered the scientific revolution. The methodology presented in the Novum Organum is still valid and in use today.
Note that I shortened some of the quotes to make them easier to digest. Don’t worry if you don’t know Latin, just stick to my translations.
Obeying nature rather than opposing her
Novum Organum means “new tool”. Bacon’s aim was to provide a program or framework for the creation of knowledge: the scientific method, as we would nowadays call it.
Bacon goes to the core of the matter right at the book’s beginning, summarizing his program for the sciences in four words:
Natura nonnisi parendo vincitur.
We can only dominate nature by obeying her.
The following quote explains what that means:
Ad opera nil aliud potest homo, quam ut corpora naturalia admoveat et amoveat: reliqua natura intus transigit.
Man can only create things by adding and removing natural bodies; the rest is handled by nature internally.
That is, instead of opposing nature, trying to subdue her, we should learn about her inner workings and imitate them in our works. Indeed, when we think of modern inventions such as the airplane or neural networks, we find that they imitate natural processes. Bacon’s program became a huge success!
Two ways of scientific discovery (one of them wrong)
According to Bacon there are two ways of scientific discovery:
Altera [via] a sensu et particularibus advolat ad axiomata maxime generalia, atque ex iis principiis judicat et invenit axiomata media.
The first way hastily jumps from individual observations to general theories. From there it derives more specific theories.
This was the usual — and flawed — way of scientific discovery in Bacon’s times. As an example, consider the doctrine of four elements (earth, water, air, fire), a premature conclusion from superficial observation. For Bacon it was clear that any hypotheses or inventions derived from this theory would lead nowhere.
Let us now look at the second, correct way of doing science:
Altera [via] a sensu et particularibus excitat axiomata, ascendendo continenter et gradatim, ut ultimo loco perveniatur ad maxime generalia; quae via vera est, sed intentata.
The second way establishes theories by gradually ascending from individual observations to more and more general theories. This way is correct, but untried.
Bacon calls this second way true induction (inductio vera), which is part and parcel of today’s scientific method.
An example of true induction would be to observe the properties of frozen water, boiling water, vapor etc., deriving a theory of the states of water. Building on that, and observing other substances, one could develop a more general theory of aggregate states. This theory, in turn, may inform an even more general theory of matter, etc.
This raises the question: why did people follow the wrong, pseudo-scientific method in the first place, although results were poor? Why did they believe in the four elements theory well into 17th century? Bacon has an explanation for this: cognitive bias.
How Bacon discovered cognitive bias, without getting credit
Research on cognitive biases — our brain’s inbuilt shortcuts and errors — is now all the rage. Few people realize that Bacon was the one who invented the concept. Researchers in cognitive science should give credit to Bacon for his discovery — alas, they don’t.
Bacon recognized that the very structure of human thought produces biases (which he calls “idols of the mind”). He compares our mind to a bad mirror:
Est intellectus humanus instar speculi inaequalis, qui suam naturam naturae rerum immiscet, eamque distorquet et inficit.
The human mind is like an uneven mirror, which mixes its unevenness into the image, thus distorting and coloring reality.
Overall Bacon distinguished between four types of cognitive bias. Here I will review some of the better known ones. Perhaps the best-known bias is the confirmation bias, which Bacon describes like so:
Intellectus humanus in iis quae semel placuerunt, alia etiam omnia trahit ad suffragationem et consensum cum illis, et licet major sit instantiarum vis et copia, quae occurrunt in contrarium; tamen eas aut non observat, aut contemnit.
The human mind forces everything to comply with its existing beliefs, even if more and stronger evidence occurs to the contrary. The mind either ignores or brushes aside such evidence.
Another bias that Bacon discovered is called the “What You See Is All There Is” heuristic. Its discovery is credited to Daniel Kahneman, author of the book Thinking, Fast and Slow, although Bacon described it 400 years earlier:
Intellectus humanus illis, quae simul et subito mentem ferire et subire possunt, maxime movetur; reliqua vero modo quodam, licet imperceptibili, ita se habere fingit et supponit, quomodo se habent pauca illa quibus mens obsidetur.
The human mind is strongly influenced by the few things that suddenly strike the senses. It subconsciously assumes everything else to comply with those things, which occupy the mind.
The consequence is:
… ut ea, quae sensum feriunt, illis, quae sensum immediate non feriunt, licet potioribus, praeponderent.
… that the things striking the senses eclipse more important things which do not strike the senses.
Want an example? It is easier to sell a house with a shiny new kitchen, but weak heating, than vice versa.
Now, what about the four elements theory? Which bias was responsible for its perpetuation? Read on:
Intellectus humanus facile supponit majorem ordinem et aequalitatem in rebus, quam invenit; et cum multa sint in natura monodica, et plena imparitatis, tamen affingit parallela, et correspondentia, et relativa, quae non sunt.
The human mind assumes things to be more orderly and regular than they really are; and although many natural phenomena are exceptional and irregular, the mind makes up parallels, correspondences and relations.
Earth vs. Air, Fire vs. Water — all neat and symmetrical, but not real. I have found no mention of this bias in the modern literature. Was it forgotten? If you have seen this bias mentioned anywhere, please let me know in the comments! For now I’m calling it the elegance bias.
Science’s superpowers
Let us briefly outline Bacon’s method of true induction. It starts with the scientific experiment.
Experientia, si occurrat, casus; si quaesita sit, experimentum nominatur.
Evidence, if it occurs randomly, is called chance; if it is sought, it’s called experiment.
What a beautiful quote. Bacon strongly opposed the random experimentation that was commonplace in his days, advocating a systematic approach to gathering evidence. He maintained that science is all about doing things in the right order:
Verus ordo incipit ab experientia ordinata et digesta, atque ex ea educit axiomata, atque ex axiomatibus constitutis rursus experimenta nova.
Following the correct order, science begins with neatly organized evidence, from which it derives theories, from which it in turn derives new experiments.
This is the virtuous circle of science: better experiments lead to better theories, which lead to better experiments, and so on.
But not every experiment is scientific. Bacon distinguishes between practical and scientific experiments. Practical experiments are aimed at creating new works or inventions, as in engineering. Scientific experiments, on the other hand:
… in se nullius sunt usus, sed ad inventionem causarum et axiomatum tantum faciunt.
… are of no use by themselves, they rather help us find causes and theories.
This, in fact, is their “superpower”:
Lucifera experimenta miram habent in se virtutem et conditionem; hanc videlicet, quod nunquam fallant aut frustrentur: quaquaversum cadunt, intentioni aeque satisfaciunt; cum quaestionem terminent.
Scientific experiments are of a miraculous power and condition, for they never fail or disappoint us: however they turn out, they always answer the research question.
How true! Until the 17th century, researchers suffered from a kind of intellectual myopia. Every experiment just had to deliver a tangible result or invention. Bacon established a new paradigm:
Non in plano via sita est, sed ascendendo primo ad axiomata, descendendo ad opera.
The path (to knowledge) is not level: it first ascends to theory, then descends to inventions.
Bacon admonished his contemporaries to build solid theory first, from which inventions would flow by themselves. His intuition was spot on. Think about modern inventions like the computer or nuclear energy, which were built on the foundation of mathematical and physical theory.
There is another superpower of the scientific method: it doesn’t require genius.
Nostra via inveniendi scientias exaequat fere ingenia, et non multum excellentiae eorum relinquit.
Our method of doing science works regardless of individual talent; it does not require intellectual excellence.
Back in Bacon’s times, scientific progress was made by few, gifted people like Galileo Galilei or René Descartes. Compare that with our modern world, where hordes of (more or less talented) graduate students conduct thousands of experiments every day. It is as if their efforts were guided in the right direction by an invisible hand: the scientific method.
Did you enjoy this summary? Head to Part 2!
