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47 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1932)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry47 and id is 1 raw text is: Volume XL VH] March, 1932 [Number / POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY SOME HISTORICAL IDOLS IN the Novum Organum Francis Bacon, expounding his famous doctrine of idols , likens the human intellect to a false mirror, which distorts the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it, and observes that the infusion which the mind receives from will and desire produces what may be called sciences to suit one's purpose, ad quod vult scientias. If you pay attention to Bacon's matter and not to his manner, he sounds like a modern psychologist discoursing upon the process of rationalization , when he says that what one wishes to be true he easily believes to be true. In con- cluding his discussion of the various kinds of idols, or false notions, that are deeply embedded in the human mind, he admonishes those who would interpret nature truly to renounce them all with a fixed and solemn determination, so that they may approach the Kingdom of Man, which is founded on science, as they would approach the Kingdom of Heaven, whereinto none may enter save as a little child. In offering this counsel of perfection Bacon may seem less modern. The seventeenth century did not concern itself with animal psychology or seek to plumb the deeps of the human sub- conscious. It may be that the mind of man cannot be fully cleansed of all its idols. But at any rate Bacon's ideal of disinterestedness is the ideal of the present-day scientist-at least while he is at work in his laboratory. For many centuries astrologers studied the movements of the heavenly bodies because of their supposed relation to human life and destiny. They acquired some astronomical knowledge, but astronomy became genuinely scientific only

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