Instauratio magna

Bacon, Francis (1561-1620). Instauratio magna. [Novum organum sive indicia vera de interpretatione naturae.] Small folio. [12, including blank leaf conjugate with engraved title], 172, 181-360, 36, [2]pp. Beautiful engraved title-page by Simon de Passe (1595-1647); early inscriptions partially erased from top margin and center of engraving. London: John Bill, 1620. 292 x 192 mm. Vellum ca. 1620, leather spine labels, a bit soiled. Remnants of blue paper on front and back pastedowns, first leaves a bit soiled but a fine copy. Leather booklabel of Frederick Spiegelberg.

First Edition, second issue. (Only a handful of copies of the first issue exist.) The philosophical exposition of the experimental method in science, which greatly influenced the creation and development of the first scientific academies—the "Invisible College," the Royal Society, and the Académie Royale des Sciences, with inestimable effect on the development of scientific thought.

At a time when scholars still relied on classical authority and metaphysical speculation to learn about the world they lived in, Bacon conceived a new means of acquiring true knowledge of the world via observation, experiment and inductive reasoning, the type of logical thinking that ascends from specific facts to the establishment of general laws and principles. Bacon saw this novum organum, or "new instrument" as the means of bringing about a "great revolution" (instauratio magna) in thought. Once taught the new experimental method, everyone would be capable of engaging in scientific investigation, unlocking the secrets of nature and applying the results (ideally) for the betterment of humankind. Bacon's vision of science inspired the subsequent foundation of the first scientific academies, and also opened up the question of science's relationship with government and society.

Bacon originally envisioned the Instauratio magna in six parts, of which only two were completed: De augmentis scientiarum (1623), and Novum organum, which, along with the introduction to the third part (Parasceve ad historiam naturalem et experimentalem), and two sets of Aphorisms, makes up the present work. The second issue has the errata leaf and colophon reading "Londini/Apud Joannem Billium/Typographum Regium/M.DX.XX." STC 1163. Horblit 8b. Dibner 80. Printing and the Mind of Man 119. Gibson, Bacon (1950), 103b. Eiseley, "Francis Bacon," Makers of Modern Thought (1972). Norman 98.