The term was coined in Latin by Sir Francis Bacon and used in his Novum Organum, one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the logic and method of modern science.
Because of them, "truth can hardly find entrance" in people's minds, and Bacon predicted that even after the "instauration of the sciences" which he proposes, they will "meet and trouble us, unless men being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults".
And whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or a more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true divisions of nature, words stand in the way and resist the change.
Whence it comes to pass that the high and formal discussions of learned men end oftentimes in disputes about words and names; with which (according to the use and wisdom of the mathematicians) it would be more prudent to begin, and so by means of definitions reduce them to order.
So that it is necessary to recur to individual instances, and those in due series and order, as I shall say presently when I come to the method and scheme for the formation of notions and axioms.Bacon said that there were two basic kinds of Idol of the Market Place:[3] According to Bacon, it is the second class, "which springs out of a faulty and unskillful abstraction", is "intricate and deeply rooted".