Novum Organum / The New Organon

The Novum Organum is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon

published in 1620. The title translates as "new instrument". This is a reference

to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and

syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he

believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. For Bacon, finding the

essence of a thing was a simple process of reduction, and the use of inductive

reasoning. In finding the cause of a phenomenal nature such as heat, one

must list all of the situations where heat is found. Then another list should be

drawn up, listing situations that are similar to those of the first list except

for the lack of heat. A third table lists situations where heat can vary. The

form nature, or cause, of heat must be that which is common to all

instances in the first table, is lacking from all instances of the second table

and varies by degree in instances of the third table.

— Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.