It is a well known fact that the discoveries of new destinations has always been accomplished with human mistakes and shortcomings

           It is a well known fact that the discoveries of new destinations has always been accomplished with human mistakes and shortcomings – as for Columbus the discovered continent of America, was India, which he desired to visit.  Marlowe reminds of this tendency in his play, and Francis Bacon invents his metaphor of “idols” to refer to such causes of human error.  In the first book of Novum Organum Bacon discusses the causes of human error in the pursuit of knowledge. Bacon defends the new studies against those who considered them to be a poison to one’s soul, but he also insists on the unmistakable understanding that can not accept any exaggeration. “The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds,” (XLV.1-2).  In The Advancement of Learning the philosopher emphasizes the same issue of danger in knowledge for those, who were not trained enough, for they can easily adopt heresy or can think that “nature’s chain needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter’s chair”.

          Bacon distinguishes four idols, or main varieties of the error. The “idols of the tribe” are certain intellectual faults that are universal to mankind, or, at any rate, very common. One, for example, is a tendency toward oversimplification that is that there exists more order in a field of inquiry than there actually is. The “idols of the cave” are the intellectual peculiarities of individuals. One person may concentrate on the likenesses, another on the differences, between things. The “idols of the marketplace” are the kinds of errors for which language is responsible. The fourth and final group is the “idols of the theatre”, which are a mistaken systems of philosophy in Baconian sense of the term, in which it embraces all beliefs of any degree of generality.

            John Donne said in his Anatomy of the World that “new philosophy calls all in doubt” (205) and “no man’s wit /Can well direct him” (207-208).  “Wit” is a Renaissance metaphysical term for either similarity, or difference, which are used by Bacon in his Idols of Tribe.  Here we see the poet’s attitude toward the modern Renaissance philosophy which is very critical.  Bacon insists on man’s inability to distinguish between truth and false, and the poet is absolutely sure that man is an independent individual, a “phoenix”, who is able to take decisions without anyone’s help.  Poets and philosophers have been known as irreconcilable opponents for centuries.  We can easily recognize a similar situation in ancient Plato and Aristotle; poets would still withstand the philosophers’ siege during Renaissance, where we see Bacon and Donne.  Yet but still, they have at least a small amount of similarity in their works and ways of thinking – they write for man and about man.  Both of them insist on discoveries and the gaining of new knowledge, which will make man more and more powerful and wise.