(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._