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When he arrived in Rome, and saw the Greek masterpieces of sculpture collected at vast cost by Leo X, he wished to break them to pieces, exclaiming, "Suet idola anticorum." His first act was to despatch a papal nuncio, Francesco Cherigato, to the Diet of Nuremberg, convened to discuss the reforms of Luther, with instructions which give a vivid notion of the manners of the time.
Taking source respectively, from the "common infirmity of human nature," from the "erroneous disposition of the people," from "confident adherence to authority," the errors which Browne chooses to deal with may be registered as identical with Bacon's Idola Tribus, Fori, Theatri; the idols of our common human nature; of the vulgar, when they get together; and of the learned, when they get together.
The most dangerous are the idola theatri, which consist in the tendency to put more trust in authority and tradition than in independent reflection, to adopt current ideas simply because they find general acceptance.
Bacon having completed his discussion of the Idola, then proceeds to point out the weakness of the old philosophies, which produced leaves rather than fruit, and were stationary in their character. Here he would seem to lean towards utilitarianism, were it not that he is as severe on men of experiment as on men of dogma.
A curious reader, in that period of excitement about 'spiritualism, would turn to the Revue, attracted by M. Littre's name. This is not very consistent or helpful counsel. Like the rest of us, who are so far beneath M. Littre in grasp and in weight of authority, he was subject to the idola fori, the illusions of the market-place.
When he arrived in Rome, and saw the Greek masterpieces of sculpture collected at vast cost by Leo X, he wished to break them to pieces, exclaiming, "Suet idola anticorum." His first act was to despatch a papal nuncio, Francesco Cherigato, to the Diet of Nuremberg, convened to discuss the reforms of Luther, with instructions which give a vivid notion of the manners of the time.
Fourthly, That whereunto more respect and account is given than God alloweth to be given to it, and wherein more excellency is placed than God hath put into it, or will at all communicate to it, is an idol exalted against God; which maketh Zanchius to say, Si Luthero vel Calvino tribuas, quod non potuerant errare, idola tibi fingis.
It is very well to tell men to be on their guard against prejudices, not to believe facts on slight evidence, not to be content with a scanty collection of facts, to put out of their minds the idola which Bacon has so finely described. But these rules are too general to be of much practical use. The question is, What is a prejudice?
This is, we believe, one of those illusions to which the whole human race is subject, and which experience and reflection can only partially remove, It is, in the phraseology of Bacon, one of the idola tribus. Hence it is that the moral character of a man eminent in letters or in the fine arts is treated, often by contemporaries, almost always by posterity, with extraordinary tenderness.
Such individual weaknesses are numberless, yet they may in part be corrected by comparison with the perceptions of others. The idola tribus, finally, are grounded in the nature of the human species.
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