No More Learning

For any one operating on
natural bodies must be certain as to their quantity, and that nothing
has evaporated or escaped, since profound alterations take place in
bodies, when art prevents the loss or escape of any portion, while
nature prevents their annihilation. With regard to this circumstance,
a false idea has prevailed (which if true would make us despair of
preserving quantity without diminution), namely, that the spirit of
bodies, and air when rarefied by a great degree of heat, cannot be so
kept in by being inclosed in any vessel as not to escape by the small
pores. Men are led into this idea by the common experiments of a cup
inverted over water, with a candle or piece of lighted paper in it,
by which the water is drawn up, and of those cups which, when heated,
draw up the flesh. For they think that in each experiment the rarefied
air escapes, and that its quantity is therefore diminished, by which
means the water or flesh rises by the motion of connection. This is,
however, most incorrect. For the air is not diminished in quantity, but
contracted in dimensions,[161] nor does this motion of the rising of
the water begin till the flame is extinguished, or the air cooled, so
that physicians place cold sponges, moistened with water, on the cups,
in order to increase their attraction. There is, therefore, no reason
why men should fear much from the ready escape of air: for although it
be true that the most solid bodies have their pores, yet neither air,
nor spirit, readily suffers itself to be rarefied to such an extreme
degree; just as water will not escape by a small chink.

2. With regard to the second of the seven above-mentioned methods, we
must especially observe, that compression and similar violence have a
most powerful effect either in producing locomotion, and other motions
of the same nature, as may be observed in engines and projectiles, or
in destroying the organic body, and those qualities, which consist
entirely in motion (for all life, and every description of flame and
ignition are destroyed by compression, which also injures and deranges
every machine); or in destroying those qualities which consist in
position and a coarse difference of parts, as in colors; for the color
of a flower when whole, differs from that it presents when bruised, and
the same may be observed of whole and powdered amber; or in tastes,
for the taste of a pear before it is ripe, and of the same pear when
bruised and softened, is different, since it becomes perceptibly
more sweet. But such violence is of little avail in the more noble
transformations and changes of homogeneous bodies, for they do not,
by such means, acquire any constantly and permanently new state, but
one that is transitory, and always struggling to return to its former
habit and freedom. It would not, however, be useless to make some
more diligent experiments with regard to this; whether, for instance,
the condensation of a perfectly homogeneous body (such as air, water,
oil, and the like) or their rarefaction, when effected by violence,
can become permanent, fixed, and, as it were, so changed, as to become
a nature. This might at first be tried by simple perseverance, and
then by means of helps and harmonies. It might readily have been
attempted (if we had but thought of it), when we condensed water (as
was mentioned above), by hammering and compression, until it burst
out. For we ought to have left the flattened globe untouched for some
days, and then to have drawn off the water, in order to try whether it
would have immediately occupied the same dimensions as it did before
the condensation. If it had not done so, either immediately, or soon
afterward, the condensation would have appeared to have been rendered
constant; if not, it would have appeared that a restitution took place,
and that the condensation had been transitory. Something of the same
kind might have been tried with the glass eggs; the egg should have
been sealed up suddenly and firmly, after a complete exhaustion of
the air, and should have been allowed to remain so for some days, and
it might then have been tried whether, on opening the aperture, the
air would be drawn in with a hissing noise, or whether as much water
would be drawn into it when immersed, as would have been drawn into it
at first, if it had not continued sealed. For it is probable (or, at
least, worth making the experiment) that this might have happened, or
might happen, because perseverance has a similar effect upon bodies
which are a little less homogeneous. A stick bent together for some
time does not rebound, which is not owing to any loss of quantity in
the wood during the time, for the same would occur (after a larger
time) in a plate of steel, which does not evaporate. If the experiment
of simple perseverance should fail, the matter should not be given up,
but other means should be employed. For it would be no small advantage,
if bodies could be endued with fixed and constant natures by violence.
Air could then be converted into water by condensation, with other
similar effects; for man is more the master of violent motions than of
any other means.

3. The third of our seven methods is referred to that great practical
engine of nature, as well as of art, cold and heat. Here, man’s power
limps, as it were, with one leg. For we possess the heat of fire, which
is infinitely more powerful and intense than that of the sun (as it
reaches us), and that of animals. But we want cold,[162] except such
as we can obtain in winter, in caverns, or by surrounding objects
with snow and ice, which, perhaps, may be compared in degree with
the noontide heat of the sun in tropical countries, increased by the
reflection of mountains and walls. For this degree of heat and cold can
be borne for a short period only by animals, yet it is nothing compared
with the heat of a burning furnace, or the corresponding degree of
cold. [163] Everything with us has a tendency to become rarefied,
dry and wasted, and nothing to become condensed or soft, except
by mixtures, and, as it were, spurious methods. Instances of cold,
therefore, should be searched for most diligently, such as may be found
by exposing bodies upon buildings in a hard frost, in subterraneous
caverns, by surrounding bodies with snow and ice in deep places
excavated for that purpose, by letting bodies down into wells, by
burying bodies in quicksilver and metals, by immersing them in streams
which petrify wood, by burying them in the earth (which the Chinese
are reported to do with their china, masses of which, made for that
purpose, are said to remain in the ground for forty or fifty years, and
to be transmitted to their heirs as a sort of artificial mine) and the
like. The condensations which take place in nature, by means of cold,
should also be investigated, that by learning their causes, they may
be introduced into the arts; such as are observed in the exudation of
marble and stones, in the dew upon the panes of glass in a room toward
morning after a frosty night, in the formation and the gathering of
vapors under the earth into water, whence spring fountains and the like.

Besides the substances which are cold to the touch, there are others
which have also the effect of cold, and condense; they appear, however,
to act only upon the bodies of animals, and scarcely any further. Of
these we have many instances, in medicines and plasters. Some condense
the flesh and tangible parts, such as astringent and inspissating
medicines, others the spirits, such as soporifics. There are two modes
of condensing the spirits, by soporifics or provocatives to sleep;
the one by calming the motion, the other by expelling the spirit. The
violet, dried roses, lettuces, and other benign or mild remedies,
by their friendly and gently cooling vapors, invite the spirits to
unite, and restrain their violent and perturbed motion. Rose-water,
for instance, applied to the nostrils in fainting fits, causes the
resolved and relaxed spirits to recover themselves, and, as it were,
cherishes them. But opiates, and the like, banish the spirits by
their malignant and hostile quality. If they be applied, therefore,
externally, the spirits immediately quit the part and no longer readily
flow into it; but if they be taken internally, their vapor, mounting
to the head, expels, in all directions, the spirits contained in the
ventricles of the brain, and since these spirits retreat, but cannot
escape, they consequently meet and are condensed, and are sometimes
completely extinguished and suffocated; although the same opiates, when
taken in moderation, by a secondary accident (the condensation which
succeeds their union), strengthen the spirits, render them more robust,
and check their useless and inflammatory motion, by which means they
contribute not a little to the cure of diseases, and the prolongation
of life.

The preparations of bodies, also, for the reception of cold should not
be omitted, such as that water a little warmed is more easily frozen
than that which is quite cold, and the like.

Moreover, since nature supplies cold so sparingly, we must act like the
apothecaries, who, when they cannot obtain any simple ingredient, take
a succedaneum, or _quid pro quo_, as they term it, such as aloes for
xylobalsamum, cassia for cinnamon. In the same manner we should look
diligently about us, to ascertain whether there may be any substitutes
for cold, that is to say, in what other manner condensation can be
effected, which is the peculiar operation of cold. Such condensations
appear hitherto to be of four kinds only. 1. By simple compression,
which is of little avail toward permanent condensation, on account
of the elasticity of substances, but may still, however, be of some
assistance. 2. By the contraction of the coarser, after the escape
or departure of the finer parts of a given body; as is exemplified
in induration by fire, and the repeated heating and extinguishing of
metals, and the like. 3. By the cohesion of the most solid homogeneous
parts of a given body, which were previously separated, and mixed with
others less solid, as in the return of sublimated mercury to its simple
state, in which it occupies much less space than it did in powder, and
the same may be observed of the cleansing of all metals from their
dross. 4. By harmony, or the application of substances which condense
by some latent power. These harmonies are as yet but rarely observed,
at which we cannot be surprised, since there is little to hope for from
their investigation, unless the discovery of forms and confirmation
be attained. With regard to animal bodies, it is not to be questioned
that there are many internal and external medicines which condense
by harmony, as we have before observed, but this action is rare in
inanimate bodies. Written accounts, as well as report, have certainly
spoken of a tree in one of the Tercera or Canary Islands (for I do
not exactly recollect which) that drips perpetually, so as to supply
the inhabitants, in some degree, with water; and Paracelsus says that
the herb called _ros solis_ is filled with dew at noon, while the sun
gives out its greatest heat, and all other herbs around it are dry. We
treat both these accounts as fables; they would, however, if true, be
of the most important service, and most worthy of examination. As to
the honey-dew, resembling manna, which is found in May on the leaves
of the oak, we are of opinion that it is not condensed by any harmony
or peculiarity of the oak leaf, but that while it falls equally upon
other leaves it is retained and continues on those of the oak, because
their texture is closer, and not so porous as that of most of the other
leaves. [164]

With regard to heat, man possesses abundant means and power; but his
observation and inquiry are defective in some respects, and those of
the greatest importance, notwithstanding the boasting of quacks. For
the effects of intense heat are examined and observed, while those of
a more gentle degree of heat, being of the most frequent occurrence
in the paths of nature, are, on that very account, least known. We
see, therefore, the furnaces, which are most esteemed, employed in
increasing the spirits of bodies to a great extent, as in the strong
acids, and some chemical oils; while the tangible parts are hardened,
and, when the volatile part has escaped, become sometimes fixed; the
homogeneous parts are separated, and the heterogeneous incorporated and
agglomerated in a coarse lump; and (what is chiefly worthy of remark)
the junction of compound bodies, and the more delicate conformations
are destroyed and confounded. But the operation of a less violent heat
should be tried and investigated, by which more delicate mixtures and
regular conformations may be produced and elicited, according to the
example of nature, and in imitation of the effect of the sun, which we
have alluded to in the aphorism on the instances of alliance. For the
works of nature are carried on in much smaller portions, and in more
delicate and varied positions than those of fire, as we now employ
it. But man will then appear to have really augmented his power, when
the works of nature can be imitated in species, perfected in power,
and varied in quantity; to which should be added the acceleration in
point of time. Rust, for instance, is the result of a long process, but
_crocus martis_ is obtained immediately; and the same may be observed
of natural verdigris and ceruse. Crystal is formed slowly, while glass
is blown immediately: stones increase slowly, while bricks are baked
immediately, etc. In the meantime (with regard to our present subject)
every different species of heat should, with its peculiar effects, be
diligently collected and inquired into; that of the heavenly bodies,
whether their rays be direct, reflected, or refracted, or condensed by
a burning-glass; that of lightning, flame, and ignited charcoal; that
of fire of different materials, either open or confined, straitened or
overflowing, qualified by the different forms of the furnaces, excited
by the bellows, or quiescent, removed to a greater or less distance,
or passing through different media; moist heats, such as the _balneum
Mariæ_, and the dunghill; the external and internal heat of animals;
dry heats, such as the heat of ashes, lime, warm sand; in short, the
nature of every kind of heat, and its degrees.

We should, however, particularly attend to the investigation and
discovery of the effects and operations of heat, when made to approach
and retire by degrees, regularly, periodically, and by proper intervals
of space and time. For this systematical inequality is in truth the
daughter of heaven and mother of generation, nor can any great result
be expected from a vehement, precipitate, or desultory heat. For this
is not only most evident in vegetables, but in the wombs of animals
also there arises a great inequality of heat, from the motion, sleep,
food, and passions of the female. The same inequality prevails in
those subterraneous beds where metals and fossils are perpetually
forming, which renders yet more remarkable the ignorance of some of the
reformed alchemists, who imagined they could attain their object by the
equable heat of lamps, or the like, burning uniformly. Let this suffice
concerning the operation and effects of heat; nor is it time for us
to investigate them thoroughly before the forms and conformations
of bodies have been further examined and brought to light. When we
have determined upon our models, we may seek, apply, and arrange our
instruments.

4. The fourth mode of action is by continuance, the very steward and
almoner, as it were, of nature. We apply the term continuance to the
abandonment of a body to itself for an observable time, guarded and
protected in the meanwhile from all external force. For the internal
motion then commences to betray and exert itself when the external and
adventitious is removed. The effects of time, however, are far more
delicate than those of fire. Wine, for instance, cannot be clarified
by fire as it is by continuance. Nor are the ashes produced by
combustion so fine as the particles dissolved or wasted by the lapse
of ages. The incorporations and mixtures, which are hurried by fire,
are very inferior to those obtained by continuance; and the various
conformations assumed by bodies left to themselves, such as mouldiness,
etc. , are put a stop to by fire or a strong heat. It is not, in the
meantime, unimportant to remark that there is a certain degree of
violence in the motion of bodies entirely confined; for the confinement
impedes the proper motion of the body. Continuance in an open vessel,
therefore, is useful for separations, and in one hermetically sealed
for mixtures, that in a vessel partly closed, but admitting the air,
for putrefaction. But instances of the operation and effect of
continuance must be collected diligently from every quarter.

5. The direction of motion (which is the fifth method of action) is
of no small use. We adopt this term, when speaking of a body which,
meeting with another, either arrests, repels, allows, or directs
its original motion. This is the case principally in the figure and
position of vessels. An upright cone, for instance, promotes the
condensation of vapor in alembics, but when reversed, as in inverted
vessels, it assists the refining of sugar. Sometimes a curved form,
or one alternately contracted and dilated, is required. Strainers may
be ranged under this head, where the opposed body opens a way for
one portion of another substance and impedes the rest. Nor is this
process or any other direction of motion carried on externally only,
but sometimes by one body within another. Thus, pebbles are thrown
into water to collect the muddy particles, and syrups are refined by
the white of an egg, which glues the grosser particles together so as
to facilitate their removal. Telesius, indeed, rashly and ignorantly
enough attributes the formation of animals to this cause, by means of
the channels and folds of the womb. He ought to have observed a similar
formation of the young in eggs which have no wrinkles or inequalities.
One may observe a real result of this direction of motion in casting
and modelling.

6. The effects produced by harmony and aversion (which is the
sixth method) are frequently buried in obscurity; for these occult
and specific properties (as they are termed), the sympathies and
antipathies, are for the most part but a corruption of philosophy. Nor
can we form any great expectation of the discovery of the harmony which
exists between natural objects, before that of their forms and simple
conformations, for it is nothing more than the symmetry between these
forms and conformations.

The greater and more universal species of harmony are not, however,
so wholly obscure, and with them, therefore, we must commence. The
first and principal distinction between them is this; that some bodies
differ considerably in the abundance and rarity of their substance, but
correspond in their conformation; others, on the contrary, correspond
in the former and differ in the latter. Thus the chemists have well
observed, that in their trial of first principles sulphur and mercury,
as it were, pervade the universe; their reasoning about salt, however,
is absurd, and merely introduced to comprise earthy dry fixed bodies.
In the other two, indeed, one of the most universal species of natural
harmony manifests itself. Thus there is a correspondence between
sulphur, oil, greasy exhalations, flame, and, perhaps, the substance of
the stars. On the other hand, there is a like correspondence between
mercury, water, aqueous vapor, air, and, perhaps, pure inter-sidereal
ether. Yet do these two quaternions, or great natural tribes (each
within its own limits), differ immensely in quantity and density of
substance, while they generally agree in conformation, as is manifest
in many instances. On the other hand, the metals agree in such quantity
and density (especially when compared with vegetables, etc. ), but
differ in many respects in conformation. Animals and vegetables, in
like manner, vary in their almost infinite modes of conformation, but
range within very limited degrees of quantity and density of substance.

The next most general correspondence is that between individual bodies
and those which supply them by way of menstruum or support. Inquiry,
therefore, must be made as to the climate, soil, and depth at which
each metal is generated, and the same of gems, whether produced in
rocks or mines, also as to the soil in which particular trees, shrubs,
and herbs, mostly grow and, as it were, delight; and as to the best
species of manure, whether dung, chalk, sea sand, or ashes, etc. , and
their different propriety and advantage according to the variety of
soils. So also the grafting and setting of trees and plants (as regards
the readiness of grafting one particular species on another) depends
very much upon harmony, and it would be amusing to try an experiment
I have lately heard of, in grafting forest trees (garden trees alone
having hitherto been adopted), by which means the leaves and fruit
are enlarged, and the trees produce more shade. The specific food of
animals again should be observed, as well as that which cannot be used.
Thus the carnivorous cannot be fed on herbs, for which reason the order
of feuilletans, the experiment having been made, has nearly vanished;
human nature being incapable of supporting their regimen, although the
human will has more power over the bodily frame than that of other
animals. The different kinds of putrefaction from which animals are
generated should be noted.

The harmony of principal bodies with those subordinate to them (such
indeed may be deemed those we have alluded to above) are sufficiently
manifest, to which may be added those that exist between different
bodies and their objects, and, since these latter are more apparent,
they may throw great light when well observed and diligently examined
upon those which are more latent.

The more internal harmony and aversion, or friendship and enmity
(for superstition and folly have rendered the terms of sympathy and
antipathy almost disgusting), have been either falsely assigned,
or mixed with fable, or most rarely discovered from neglect. For if
one were to allege that there is an enmity between the vine and the
cabbage, because they will not come up well when sown together, there
is a sufficient reason for it in the succulent and absorbent nature
of each plant, so that the one defrauds the other. Again, if one were
to say that there is a harmony and friendship between the corn and
the corn-flower, or the wild poppy, because the latter seldom grow
anywhere but in cultivated soils, he ought rather to say, there is an
enmity between them, for the poppy and the corn-flower are produced and
created by those juices which the corn has left and rejected, so that
the sowing of the corn prepares the ground for their production. And
there are a vast number of similar false assertions. As for fables,
they must be totally exterminated. There remains, then, but a scanty
supply of such species of harmony as has borne the test of experiment,
such as that between the magnet and iron, gold and quicksilver, and
the like. In chemical experiments on metals, however, there are some
others worthy of notice, but the greatest abundance (where the whole
are so few in numbers) is discovered in certain medicines, which,
from their occult and specific qualities (as they are termed), affect
particular limbs, humors, diseases, or constitutions. Nor should we
omit the harmony between the motion and phenomena of the moon, and
their effects on lower bodies, which may be brought together by an
accurate and honest selection from the experiments of agriculture,
navigation, and medicine, or of other sciences. By as much as these
general instances, however, of more latent harmony, are rare, with
so much the more diligence are they to be inquired after, through
tradition, and faithful and honest reports, but without rashness
and credulity, with an anxious and, as it were, hesitating degree of
reliance. There remains one species of harmony which, though simple in
its mode of action, is yet most valuable in its use, and must by no
means be omitted, but rather diligently investigated. It is the ready
or difficult coition or union of bodies in composition, or simple
juxtaposition. For some bodies readily and willingly mix, and are
incorporated, others tardily and perversely; thus powders mix best with
water, chalk and ashes with oils, and the like. Nor are these instances
of readiness and aversion to mixture to be alone collected, but others,
also, of the collocation, distribution, and digestion of the parts when
mingled, and the predominance after the mixture is complete.

7. Lastly, there remains the seventh, and last of the seven, modes
of action; namely, that by the alternation and interchange of the
other six; but of this, it will not be the right time to offer any
examples, until some deeper investigation shall have taken place of
each of the others. The series, or chain of this alternation, in its
mode of application to separate effects, is no less powerful in its
operation than difficult to be traced. But men are possessed with the
most extreme impatience, both of such inquiries, and their practical
application, although it be the clew of the labyrinth in all greater
works. Thus far of the generally useful instances.

LI. The twenty-seventh and last place we will assign to the magical
instances, a term which we apply to those where the matter or efficient
agent is scanty or small, in comparison with the grandeur of the work
or effect produced; so that even when common they appear miraculous,
some at first sight, others even upon more attentive observation.
Nature, however, of herself, supplies these but sparingly. What she
will do when her whole store is thrown open, and after the discovery
of forms, processes, and conformation, will appear hereafter. As far
as we can yet conjecture, these magic effects are produced in three
ways, either by self-multiplication, as in fire, and the poisons termed
specific, and the motions transferred and multiplied from wheel to
wheel; or by the excitement, or, as it were, invitation of another
substance, as in the magnet, which excites innumerable needles without
losing or diminishing its power; and again in leaven, and the like; or
by the excess of rapidity of one species of motion over another, as
has been observed in the case of gunpowder, cannon, and mines. The two
former require an investigation of harmonies, the latter of a measure
of motion. Whether there be any mode of changing bodies _per minima_
(as it is termed), and transferring the delicate conformations of
matter, which is of importance in all transformations of bodies, so as
to enable art to effect, in a short time, that which nature works out
by divers expedients, is a point of which we have as yet no indication.
But, as we aspire to the extremest and highest results in that which is
solid and true, so do we ever detest, and, as far as in us lies, expel
all that is empty and vain.

LII. Let this suffice as to the respective dignity of prerogatives of
instances. But it must be noted, that in this our organ, we treat of
logic, and not of philosophy. Seeing, however, that our logic instructs
and informs the understanding, in order that it may not, with the small
hooks, as it were, of the mind, catch at, and grasp mere abstractions,
but rather actually penetrate nature, and discover the properties and
effects of bodies, and the determinate laws of their substance (so
that this science of ours springs from the nature of things, as well as
from that of the mind); it is not to be wondered at, if it have been
continually interspersed and illustrated with natural observations and
experiments, as instances of our method. The prerogative instances are,
as appears from what has preceded, twenty-seven in number, and are
termed, solitary instances, migrating instances, conspicuous instances,
clandestine instances, constitutive instances, similar instances,
singular instances, deviating instances, bordering instances,
instances of power, accompanying and hostile instances, subjunctive
instances, instances of alliance, instances of the cross, instances
of divorce, instances of the gate, citing instances, instances of the
road, supplementary instances, lancing instances, instances of the
rod, instances of the course, doses of nature, wrestling instances,
suggesting instances, generally useful instances, and magical
instances. The advantage, by which these instances excel the more
ordinary, regards specifically either theory or practice, or both. With
regard to theory, they assist either the senses or the understanding;
the senses, as in the five instances of the lamp; the understanding,
either by expediting the exclusive mode of arriving at the form, as in
solitary instances, or by confining, and more immediately indicating
the affirmative, as in the migrating, conspicuous, accompanying, and
subjunctive instances; or by elevating the understanding, and leading
it to general and common natures, and that either immediately, as in
the clandestine and singular instances, and those of alliance; or very
nearly so, as in the constitutive; or still less so, as in the similar
instances; or by correcting the understanding of its habits, as in
the deviating instances; or by leading to the grand form or fabric of
the universe, as in the bordering instances; or by guarding it from
false forms and causes, as in those of the cross and of divorce. With
regard to practice, they either point it out, or measure, or elevate
it. They point it out, either by showing where we must commence in
order not to repeat the labors of others, as in the instances of power;
or by inducing us to aspire to that which may be possible, as in the
suggesting instances; the four mathematical instances measure it. The
generally useful and the magical elevate it.

Again, out of these twenty-seven instances, some must be collected
immediately, without waiting for a particular investigation of
properties. Such are the similar, singular, deviating, and bordering
instances, those of power, and of the gate, and suggesting, generally
useful, and magical instances; for these either assist and cure
the understanding and senses, or furnish our general practice. The
remainder are to be collected when we finish our synoptical tables for
the work of the interpreter, upon any particular nature; for these
instances, honored and gifted with such prerogatives, are like the
soul amid the vulgar crowd of instances, and (as we from the first
observed) a few of them are worth a multitude of the others. When,
therefore, we are forming our tables they must be searched out with the
greatest zeal, and placed in the table. And, since mention must be made
of them in what follows, a treatise upon their nature has necessarily
been prefixed. We must next, however, proceed to the supports and
corrections of induction, and thence to concretes, the latent process,
and latent conformations, and the other matters, which we have
enumerated in their order in the twenty-first aphorism, in order that,
like good and faithful guardians, we may yield up their fortune to
mankind upon the emancipation and majority of their understanding;
from which must necessarily follow an improvement of their estate, and
an increase of their power over nature. For man, by the fall, lost
at once his state of innocence, and his empire over creation, both
of which can be partially recovered even in this life, the first by
religion and faith, the second by the arts and sciences. For creation
did not become entirely and utterly rebellious by the curse, but in
consequence of the Divine decree, “in the sweat of thy brow shalt
thou eat bread,” she is compelled by our labors (not assuredly by our
disputes or magical ceremonies), at length, to afford mankind in some
degree his bread, that is to say, to supply man’s daily wants.

END OF “NOVUM ORGANUM”


FOOTNOTES

[71] Τὸ τὶ ἦν εἶναι, or ἦν οὐσία of Aristotle. --See lib. iii. Metap.

[72] These divisions are from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, where they are
termed, 1. ὓλη ἢ τὸ ὑποκείμενον. 2. τὸ τὶ ἦν εἶναι. 3. ὅθεν ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς
κινήσεως. 4. τὸ οὗ ἕνεκεν--καὶ τὸ ἀγαθόν.

[73] See Aphorism li. and second paragraph of Aphorism lxv. in the
first book.

[74] Bacon means, that although there exist in nature only
individualities, yet a certain number of these may have common
properties, and be controlled by the same laws. Now, these homogeneous
qualities which distinguish them from other individuals, lead us to
class them under one expression, and sometimes under a single term. Yet
these classes are only pure conceptions in Bacon’s opinion, and cannot
be taken for distinct substances. He evidently here aims a blow at the
Realists, who concluded that the essence which united individualities
in a class was the only real and immutable existence in nature,
inasmuch as it entered into their ideas of individual substances as
a distinct and essential property, and continued in the mind as the
mold, type or pattern of the class, while its individual forms were
undergoing perpetual renovation and decay. --_Ed. _

[75] Bacon’s definition is obscure. All the idea we have of a law of
nature consists in invariable sequence between certain classes of
phenomena; but this cannot be the complete sense attached by Bacon to
the term form, as he employs it in the fourth aphorism as convertible
with the nature of any object; and again, in the first aphorism, as
the _natura naturans_, or general law or condition in any substance
or quality--_natura naturata_--which is whatever its form is, or that
particular combination of forces which impresses a certain nature upon
matter subject to its influence. Thus, in the Newtonian sense, the
form of whiteness would be that combination of the seven primitive
rays of light which give rise to that color. In combination with this
word, and affording a still further insight into its meaning, we have
the phrases, _latens processus ad formam, et latens schematismus
corporum_. Now, the _latens schematismus_ signifies the internal
texture, structure, or configuration of bodies, or the result of the
respective situation of all the parts of a body; while the _latens
processus ad formam_ points out the gradation of movements which takes
place among the molecula of bodies when they either conserve or change
their figure. Hence we may consider the form of any quality in body
as something convertible with that quality, _i. e. _, when it exists
the quality is present, and _vice versâ_. In this sense, the form of
a thing differs only from its efficient cause in being permanent,
whereas we apply cause to that which exists in order of time. The
_latens processus_ and _latens schematismus_ are subordinate to form,
as concrete exemplifications of its essence. The former is the secret
and invisible process by which change is effected, and involves the
principle since called the law of continuity. Thus, the succession of
events between the application of the match to the expulsion of the
bullet is an instance of latent progress which we can now trace with
some degree of accuracy. It also more directly refers to the operation
by which one form or condition of being is induced upon another. For
example, when the surface of iron becomes rusty, or when water is
converted into steam, some change has taken place, or latent process
from one form to another. Mechanics afford many exemplifications of
the first latent process we have denoted, and chemistry of the second.
The _latens schematismus_ is that visible structure of bodies on
which so many of their properties depend. When we inquire into the
constitution of crystals, and into the internal structure of plants, we
are examining into their latent schematism. --_Ed. _

[76] By the recent discoveries in electric magnetism, copper wires,
or, indeed, wires of any metal, may be transformed into magnets; the
magnetic law, or form, having been to that extent discovered.

[77] Haller has pursued this investigation in his “Physiology,”
and has left his successors little else to do than repeat his
discoveries. --_Ed.
_

[78] Bacon here first seems pregnant with the important development of
the higher calculus, which, in the hands of Newton and Descartes, was
to effect as great a revolution in philosophy as his method. --_Ed. _

[79] By spirit, Bacon here plainly implies material fluid too fine to
be grasped by the unassisted sense, which rather operates than reasons.
We sometimes adopt the same mode of expression, as in the words spirits
of nitre, spirits of wine. Some such agency has been assumed by nearly
all the modern physicists, a few of whom, along with Bacon, would leave
us to gather from their expressions, that they believe such bodies
endowed with the sentient powers of perception. As another specimen
of his sentiment on this subject, we may refer to a paragraph on the
decomposition of compounds, in his essay on death, beginning--“The
spirit which exists in all living bodies, keeps all the parts in due
subjection; when it escapes, the body decomposes, or the similar parts
unite. ”--_Ed. _

[80] The theory of the Epicureans and others. The atoms are supposed
to be invisible, unalterable particles, endued with all the properties
of the given body, and forming that body by their union. They must
be separated, of course, which either takes a vacuum for granted, or
introduces a tertium quid into the composition of the body.

[81] Compare the three following aphorisms with the last three chapters
of the third book of the “De Augmentis Scientiarum. ”

[82] Bacon gives this unfortunate term its proper signification; μετα,
in composition, with the Greeks signifying change or mutation. Most of
our readers, no doubt, are aware that the obtrusion of this word into
technical philosophy was purely capricious, and is of no older date
than the publication of Aristotle’s works by Andronicus of Rhodes, one
of the learned men into whose hands the manuscripts of that philosopher
fell, after they were brought by Sylla from Athens to Rome. To fourteen
books in these MSS. with no distinguishing title, Andronicus is said to
have prefixed the words τα μετα τα φυσικα, to denote the place which
they ought to hold either in the order of Aristotle’s arrangement, or
in that of study. These books treat first of those subjects which are
common to matter and mind; secondly, of things separate from matter,
_i. e. _ of God, and of the subordinate spirits, which were supposed by
the Peripatetics to watch over particular portions of the universe. The
followers of Aristotle accepted the whimsical title of Andronicus, and
in their usual manner allowed a word to unite things into one science
which were plainly heterogeneous. Their error was adopted by the
Peripatetics of the Christian Church. The schoolmen added to the notion
of ontology, the science of the mind, or pneumatology, and as that
genus of being has since become extinct with the schools, metaphysics
thus in modern parlance comes to be synonymous with psychology. It were
to be wished that Bacon’s definition of the term had been accepted, and
mental science delivered from one of the greatest monstrosities in its
nomenclature, yet Bacon whimsically enough in his De Augmentis includes
mathematics in metaphysics. --_Ed. _

[83]

“Ne tenues pluviæ, rapidive potentia solis
Acrior, aut Boreæ penetrabile frigus adurat. ”
--Virg. Georg. i. 92, 93.

[84] This notion, which he repeats again, and particularizes in the
18th aph. of this book, is borrowed from the ancients, and we need not
say is as wise as their other astronomical conjectures. The sun also
approaches stars quite as large in other quarters of the zodiac, when
it looks down upon the earth through the murky clouds of winter. When
that luminary is in Leo, the heat of the earth is certainly greater
than at any other period, but this arises from the accumulation of heat
after the solstice, for the same reason that the maximum heat of the
day is at two o’clock instead of noon. --_Ed. _

[85] Bouguer, employed by Louis XIV. in philosophical researches,
ascended the Andes to discover the globular form of the earth, and
published an account of his passage, which verifies the statement of
Bacon.

[86] Montanari asserts in his book against the astrologers that he
had satisfied himself by numerous and oft-repeated experiments, that
the lunar rays gathered to a focus produced a sensible degree of
heat. Muschenbröck, however, adopts the opposite opinion, and asserts
that himself, De la Hire, Villet, and Tschirnhausen had tried with
that view the strongest burning-glasses in vain. (Opera de Igne. ) De
la Lande makes a similar confession in his Astronomy (vol. ii. vii.
§ 1413). Bouguer, whom we have just quoted, demonstrated that the
light of the moon was 300,000 degrees less than that of the sun; it
would consequently be necessary to invent a glass with an absorbing
power 300,000 degrees greater than those ordinarily in use, to try the
experiment Bacon speaks of. --_Ed. _

[87] In this thermometer, mercury was not dilated by heat or contracted
by cold, as the one now in use, but a mass of air employed instead,
which filled the cavity of the bulb. This being placed in an inverted
position to ours, that is to say, with the bulb uppermost, pressed
down the liquor when the air became dilated by heat, as ours press
it upward; and when the heat diminished, the liquor rose to occupy
the place vacated by the air, as the one now in use descends. It
consequently was liable to be affected by a change in the temperature,
as by the weight of air, and could afford only a rude standard of
accuracy in scientific investigations. This thermometer was not Bacon’s
own contrivance, as is commonly supposed, but that of Drebbel. --_Ed. _

[88] La Lande is indignant that the Chaldeans should have more correct
notions of the nature of comets than the modern physicists, and charges
Bacon with entertaining the idea that they were the mere effects of
vapor and heat. This passage, with two others more positive, in the
“De Aug. ” (cap. xl. ) and the “Descript. Globi Intellect. ” (cap. vi. )
certainly afford ground for the assertion; but if Bacon erred, he erred
with Galileo, and with the foremost spirits of the times. It is true
that Pythagoras and Seneca had asserted their belief in the solidity
of these bodies, but the wide dominion which Aristotle subsequently
exercised, threw their opinions into the shade, and made the opposite
doctrine everywhere paramount. --_Ed. _

[89] Was it a silk apron which exhibited electric sparks? Silk was then
scarce.

[90] The Italian fire-fly.

[91] This last is found to be the real reason, air not being a good
conductor, and therefore not allowing the escape of heat. The confined
air is disengaged when these substances are placed under an exhausted
receiver.

[92] This is erroneous. Air, in fact, is one of the worst, and metals
are the best conductors of heat.

[93] See No. 28 in the table of the degrees of heat.

[94] Bacon here mistakes sensation confined to ourselves for an
internal property of distinct substances. Metals are denser than wood,
and our bodies consequently coming into contact with more particles of
matter when we touch them, lose a greater quantity of heat than in the
case of lighter substances. --_Ed. _

[95] This was the ancient opinion, but the moderns incline to the
belief that these insects are produced by generation or fecundity
from seeds deposited by their tribes in bodies on the verge of
putrefaction. --_Ed. _

[96] The correct measure of the activity of flame may be obtained by
multiplying its natural force into the square of its velocity. On this
account the flame of vivid lightning mentioned in No. 23 contains so
much vigor, its velocity being greater than that arising from other
heat. --_Ed. _

[97] The fires supply fresh heat, the water has only a certain quantity
of heat, which being diffused over a fresh supply of cooler water, must
be on the whole lowered.

[98] If condensation were the cause of the greater heat, Bacon
concludes the centre of the flame would be the hotter part, and _vice
versâ_. The fact is, neither of the causes assigned by Bacon is the
true one; for the fire burns more quickly only because the draught of
air is more rapid, the cold dense air pressing rapidly into the heated
room and toward the chimney. --_Ed. _

[99] Bacon appears to have confounded combustibility and fusibility
with susceptibility of heat; for though the metals will certainly
neither dissolve as soon as ice or butter, nor be consumed as soon
as wood, that only shows that different degrees of heat are required
to produce similar effects on different bodies; but metals much more
readily acquire and transmit the same degree of heat than any of the
above substances. The rapid transmission renders them generally cold
to the touch. The convenience of fixing wooden handles to vessels
containing hot water illustrates these observations.

[100] Another singular error, the truth being, that solid bodies are
the best conductors; but of course where heat is diffused over a large
mass, it is less in each part, than if that part alone absorbed the
whole quantum of heat. --_Ed. _

[101] This general law or form has been well illustrated by Newton’s
discovery of the decomposition of colors.

[102] _I. e. _, the common link or form which connects the various
kinds of natures, such as the different hot or red natures enumerated
above. --See Aphorism iii. part 2.

[103] This is erroneous--all metals expand considerably when heated.

[104] “Quid ipsum,” the τὸ τὶ ἦν εἶναι of Aristotle.

[105] To show the error of the text, we need only mention the case
of water, which, when confined in corked vases, and exposed to the
action of a freezing atmosphere, is sure to swell out and break those
vessels which are not sufficiently large to contain its expanded
volume. Megalotti narrates a hundred other instances of a similar
character. --_Ed. _

[106] Bacon’s inquisition into the nature of heat, as an example of
the mode of interpreting nature, cannot be looked upon otherwise than
as a complete failure. Though the exact nature of this phenomenon is
still an obscure and controverted matter, the science of thermotics
now consists of many important truths, and to none of these truths is
there so much as an approximation in Bacon’s process. The steps by
which this science really advanced were the discovery of a measure of
a heat or temperature, the establishment of the laws of conduction and
radiation, of the laws of specific heat, latent heat, and the like.
Such advances have led to Ampère’s hypothesis, that heat consists in
the vibrations of an imponderable fluid; and to Laplace’s theory, that
temperature consists in the internal radiation of a similar medium.
These hypotheses cannot yet be said to be even probable, but at least
they are so modified as to include some of the preceding laws which
are firmly established, whereas Bacon’s “form,” or true definition of
heat, as stated in the text, includes no laws of phenomena, explains no
process, and is indeed itself an example of illicit generalization.

In all the details of his example of heat he is unfortunate. He
includes in his collection of instances, the _hot_ tastes of aromatic
plants, the caustic effects of acids, and many other facts which
cannot be ascribed to heat without a studious laxity in the use of the
word. --_Ed. _

[107] By this term Bacon understands general phenomena, taken in order
from the great mass of indiscriminative facts, which, as they lie in
nature, are apt to generate confusion by their number, indistinctness
and complication. Such classes of phenomena, as being peculiarly
suggestive of causation, he quaintly classes under the title of
prerogative inquiries, either seduced by the fanciful analogy, which
such instances bore to the _prerogativa centuria_ in the Roman Comitia,
or justly considering them as Herschel supposes to hold a kind of
prerogative dignity from being peculiarly suggestive of causation.

Two high authorities in physical science (v. Herschel, Nat. Phil. ,
art. 192; Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii.
p. 243) pronounce these instances of little service in the task of
induction, being for the most part classed not according to the ideas
which they involve, or to any obvious circumstance in the facts of
which they consist, but according to the extent and manner of their
influence upon the inquiry in which they are employed. Thus we
have solitary instances, migrating instances, ostensive instances,
clandestine instances, so termed according to the degree in which
they exhibit, or seem to exhibit, the property, whose nature we would
examine. We have guide-post instances, crucial instances, instances of
the parted road, of the doorway, of the lamp, according to the guidance
they supply to our advance. Whewell remarks that such a classification
is much of the same nature as if, having to teach the art of building,
we were to describe tools with reference to the amount and place of the
work which they must do, instead of pointing out their construction
and use; as if we were to inform the pupil that we must have tools for
lifting a stone up, tools for moving it sidewise, tools for laying it
square, and tools for cementing it firmly. The means are thus lost
in the end, and we reap the fruits of unmethodical arrangement in
the confusion of cross division. In addition, all the instances are
leavened with the error of confounding the laws with the causes of
phenomena, and we are urged to adopt the fundamental error of seeking
therein the universal agents, or general causes of phenomena, without
ascending the gradual steps of intermediate laws. --_Ed. _

[108] Of these nine general heads no more than the first is prosecuted
by the author.

[109] This very nearly approaches to Sir I. Newton’s discovery of the
decomposition of light by the prism.

[110] The mineral kingdom, as displaying the same nature in all its
gradations, from the shells so perfect in structure in limestone to the
finer marbles in which their nature gradually disappears, is the great
theatre for instances of migration. --_Ed. _

[111] Bacon was not aware of the fact since brought to light by
Römer, that down to fourteen fathoms from the earth’s mean level
the thermometer remains fixed at the tenth degree, but that as the
thermometer descends below that depth the heat increases in a ratio
proportionate to the descent, which happens with little variation in
all climates. Buffon considers this a proof of a central fire in our
planet. --_Ed. _

[112] All the diversities of bodies depend upon two principles, _i. e. _,
the quantity and the position of the elements that enter into their
composition. The primary difference is not that which depends on the
greatest or least quantity of material elements, but that which depends
on their position. It was the quick perception of this truth that made
Leibnitz say that to complete mathematics it was necessary to join to
the analysis of quantity the analysis of position. --_Ed. _

[113] Query?

[114] The real cause of this phenomenon is the attraction of the
surface-water in the vessel by the sides of the bubbles. When the
bubbles approach, the sides nearest each other both tend to raise the
small space of water between them, and consequently less water is
raised by each of these nearer sides than by the exterior part of the
bubble, and the greater weight of the water raised on the exterior
parts pushes the bubbles together. In the same manner a bubble near
the side of a vessel is pushed toward it; the vessel and bubble both
drawing the water that is between them. The latter phenomenon cannot be
explained on Bacon’s hypothesis.

[115] Modern discoveries appear to bear out the sagacity of Bacon’s
remark, and the experiments of Baron Cagnard may be regarded as a first
step toward its full demonstration. After the new facts elicited by
that philosopher, there can be little doubt that the solid, liquid
and aëriform state of bodies are merely stages in a progress of
gradual transition from one extreme to the other, and that however
strongly marked the distinctions between them may appear, they will
ultimately turn out to be separated by no sudden or violent line of
demarcation, but slide into each other by imperceptible gradations.
Bacon’s suggestion, however, is as old as Pythagoras, and perhaps
simultaneous with the first dawn of philosophic reason. The doctrine of
the reciprocal transmutation of the elements underlies all the physical
systems of the ancients, and was adopted by the Epicureans as well as
the Stoics. Ovid opens his last book of the Metamorphoses with the
poetry of the subject, where he expressly points to the hint of Bacon:--

----“Tenuatus in auras
Aëraque humor abit, etc. , etc.
* * * * * *
Inde retro redeunt, idemque retexitur ordo. ”--xv. 246–249.

and Seneca, in the third book of his Natural Philosophy, quest. iv. ,
states the opinion in more precise language than either the ancient
bard or the modern philosopher. --_Ed. _

[116] The author’s own system of Memoria Technica may be found in
the De Augmentis, chap. xv. We may add that, notwithstanding Bacon’s
assertion that he intended his method to apply to religion, politics,
and morals, this is the only lengthy illustration he has adduced of any
subject out of the domain of physical science. --_Ed. _

[117] The collective instances here meant are no other than general
facts or laws of some degree of generality, and are themselves the
result of induction. For example, the system of Jupiter, or Saturn
with its satellites, is a collective instance, and materially assisted
in securing the admission of the Copernican system. We have here in
miniature, and displayed at one view, a system analogous to that of the
planets about the sun, of which, from the circumstance of our being
involved in it, and unfavorably situated for seeing it otherwise than
in detail, we are incapacitated from forming a general idea, but by
slow and progressive efforts of reason.

But there is a species of collective instance which Bacon does not seem
to have contemplated, in which particular phenomena are presented in
such numbers at once, as to make the induction of their law a matter
of ocular inspection. For example, the parabolic form assumed by a
jet of water spouted out of a hole is a collective instance of the
velocities and directions of the motions of all the particles which
compose it seen together, and which thus leads us without trouble to
recognize the law of the motion of a projectile. Again, the beautiful
figures exhibited by sand strewed on regular plates of glass or metal
set in vibration, are collective instances of an infinite number of
points which remain at rest while the remainder of the plate vibrates,
and in consequence afford us an insight into the law which regulates
their arrangement and sequence throughout the whole surface. The richly
colored lemniscates seen around the optic axis of crystals exposed to
polarized light afford a striking instance of the same kind, pointing
at once to the general mathematical expression of the law which
regulates their production. Such collective instances as these lead us
to a general law by an induction which offers itself spontaneously,
and thus furnish advanced posts in philosophical exploration. The laws
of Kepler, which Bacon ignored on account of his want of mathematical
taste, may be cited as a collective instance. The first is, that the
planets move in elliptical orbits, having the sun for their common
focus. The second, that about this focus the _radius vector_ of each
planet describes equal areas in equal times. The third, that the
squares of the periodic times of the planets are as the cubes of their
mean distance from the sun. This collective instance “opened the way”
to the discovery of the Newtonian law of gravitation. --_Ed. _

[118] Is not this very hasty generalization? Do serpents move with four
folds only? Observe also the motion of centipedes and other insects.

[119] Shaw states another point of difference between the objects cited
in the text--animals having their roots within, while plants have
theirs without; for their lacteals nearly correspond with the fibres of
the roots in plants; so that animals seem nourished within themselves
as plants are without. --_Ed. _

[120] Bacon falls into an error here in regarding the syllogism as
something distinct from the reasoning faculty, and only one of its
forms. It is not generally true that the syllogism is only a form of
reasoning by which we unite ideas which accord with the middle term.
This agreement is not even essential to accurate syllogisms; when the
relation of the two things compared to the third is one of equality or
similitude, it of course follows that the two things compared may be
pronounced equal, or like to each other. But if the relation between
these terms exist in a different form, then it is not true that the
two extremes stand in the same relation to each other as to the middle
term. For instance, if =A= is double of =B=, and =B= double of =C=,
then =A= is quadruple of =C=. But then the relation of =A= to =C= is
different from that of =A= to =B= and of =B= to =C=. --_Ed. _

[121] Comparative anatomy is full of analogies of this kind. Those
between natural and artificial productions are well worthy of
attention, and sometimes lead to important discoveries. By observing
an analogy of this kind between the plan used in hydraulic engines for
preventing the counter-current of a fluid, and a similar contrivance in
the blood vessels, Harvey was led to the discovery of the circulation
of the blood. --_Ed. _

[122] This is well illustrated in plants, for the gardener can produce
endless varieties of any known species, but can never produce a new
species itself.

[123] The discoveries of Tournefort have placed moss in the class
of plants. The fish alluded to below are to be found only in the
tropics. --_Ed. _

[124] There is, however, no real approximation to birds in either the
flying fish or bat, any more than a man approximates to a fish because
he can swim. The wings of the flying fish and bat are mere expansions
of skin, bearing no resemblance whatever to those of birds. --_Ed. _

[125] Seneca was a sounder astronomer than Bacon. He ridiculed the idea
of the motion of any heavenly bodies being irregular, and predicted
that the day would come, when the laws which guided the revolution
of these bodies would be proved to be identical with those which
controlled the motions of the planets. The anticipation, was realized
by Newton. --_Ed. _

[126] But see Bacon’s own corollary at the end of the Instances of
Divorce, Aphorism xxxvii. If Bacon’s remark be accepted, the censure
will fall upon Newton and the system so generally received at the
present day.