parts which are most disposed and prepared for that purpose; and thus digests, works, and converts them into spirit, till at last they fly off together.

And this business of making and multiplying the spirit is brought down to the sense by the diminution of the weight of the body; for in all drying, part of the quantity goes off, which is not only the spirit that pre-existed in the body, but a part of the body itself that was before tangible, and is now newly converted into spirit, for the pure spirit has no gravity.

The emission, or exit, of this spirit is rendered sensible by the rusting of metals and other corruptions and putrefactions of that kind, which stop before they come to the rudiments of life; for in the more compact bodies the spirit finds no pores and passages through which to escape, and is therefore obliged to protrude the tangible parts, and drive them before it, so as to make them issue at the same time; whence proceed rust, and the like.

But the contraction of the tangible parts, after some of the spirit is discharged, upon which dryness ensues, is made sensible by the increased hardness of the body, but much more by the subsequent cracking or splitting of the body, and the contracting, wrinkling, and overwrapping of the parts. Thus the parts of wood crack or split asunder, and are contracted; skins wrinkle, and if the spirit be suddenly forced out by the heat of fire, they shrink so fast as to curl and roll themselves up, &c.

On the other hand, where the spirit is detained, and yet dilated and excited by heat or something analogous thereto (as happens in the more solid or tenacious bodies), then the body is either softened, as in the case of ignited iron, or flows, as in melted metals, or liquifies, as in dissolved rosin, wax, &c.; therefore these contrary operations of heat, hardening some bodies and liquifying others, are easily reconciled; because in the first case the spirit is driven out, but agitated and detained in the second; the latter being the proper action of heat and spirit, and the former the action of the tangible parts, succeedng upon the emission of the spirit.

But where the spirit is neither quite detained nor quite discharged, but only attempts and tries to force its prison, and readily meets with such tangible parts as will obey and yield to its motions, so that wherever the spirit leads they follow it, then it is that an organical body is formed, with its distinct

parts or limbs, and that all the vital actions ensue, as well in animals as vegetables.

18. Instances of the Road (Instantiae Viae); called also Itinerating or Journeying, and Articulated or Jointed Instances (Itinerantes et Articulatae).

19. Instances of Supplement, or of Substitution; called also Instances of Refuge (Instantiae Refugii). 20. Lancing Instances (Instantiae Persecantes), or Instances of Democritus; called also, for a different reason, Twitching Instances (Instantiae Vellicantes). To which are to be subjoined those called the Limits of the Lancing (Metae Persecationis); the consideration of which, however, is deferred to the head of the Supports of Induction (intended to form the next part of the treatise).

Such are the instances which assist the senses: those that remain are principally of use for operation or practice ("ad partem operativam"). They are seven in number, and are called by the general name of Practical Instances. Now there are two defects in practice. It either deceives, or it imposes too much trouble ("onerat nimis "). It deceives from the forces and activities of bodies being ill determined and measured. Now these forces and activities are circumscribed and measured in four ways; namely, by place, or by time, or by union of quantity ("per unionem quanti "), or by predominance of virtue. The four corresponding classes of instances are called Mathematical Instances, or Instances of Measure. Practice again is troublesome, either on account of the intermixture of useless things, or on account of the multiplication of instruments, or on account of the bulk of the material and of the substances which may be required for any work. The instances, therefore, that are to be prized here are such as either direct operation to those things which are of most consequence to mankind, or lessen the number of instruments, or the quantity of material. Hence three classes of instances, which are called by the general name of Propitious or Benevolent Instances.

21. Instances of the Rod or Radius (Virgae sive Radii); called also Instances of Endurance (Perlationis*), or of No Farther (Non Ultra).

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22. Instances of the Course (Curriculi); called also Water Instances (Instantiae ad Aquam), from the water-clocks of the ancients. These are instances of the measuring of things by time. Under this head Playfair observes that Bacon, after remarking that every change and every motion requires time, has the following very curious anticipation of facts, which appeared then doubtful, but which subsequent discovery has ascertained :— "The consideration of these things produced in me a doubt altogether astonishing, namely, whether the face of the serene and starry heavens be seen at the instant it really exists, or not till some time later; and whether there be not, with respect to the heavenly bodies, a true time and an apparent time, no less than a true place and an apparent place, as astronomers say, on account of parallax. For it seems [Bacon's word is videbatur— it seemed] incredible that the species or rays of the celestial bodies can pass through the immense interval between them and us in an instant, or that they do not even require some considerable portion of time.""The measurement of the velocity of light," Playfair subjoins, "and the wonderful consequences arising from it, are the best commentaries on this passage, and the highest eulogy on its author." Bacon, however, immediately proceeds

thus:

But this suspicion, as to any great interval betwixt the real and apparent time afterwards vanished, upon considering that infinite loss and diminution of quantity, as to sight, between the real body of a star and the apparent object, which difference is caused by the distance; and, at the same time, considering to what a distance objects that are barely white may, of a sudden, be seen here below, amounting to sixty miles at the least; for there is no question but that the light of the celestial bodies

* Shaw translates Permeating Instances; Mr. Wood, Instances of Completion.

has not only the vivid strength of whiteness, but also vastly exceeds the light of flame, as we find flame here in power and strength of radiancy. Nay, that immense velocity wherewith gross matter moves, in the diurnal rotation, renders this wonderfully swift motion of the rays of light, from the fixed stars, more probable. But what has the greatest weight with me is this, that if there should here be any considerable space of time between reality and sight, or the existence of the object, and its being seen, it must then happen that the sight would be frequently intercepted and confounded by clouds arising in the mean time, or by the like disturbances in the medium. And thus much for the simple mensuration of time.

23. Instances of the How Much (Instantiae Quanti); called also Doses of Nature (Doses Naturae).

24. Instances of Struggle (Instantiae Luctae); called also Instances of Predominance. Here Bacon enumerates and illustrates at great length the principal kinds of motions and active virtues or powers in nature; which he makes to be, 1. Motion of Resistance (antitypiae); 2. Of Connexion (nexus); 3. Of Liberty; 4. Of Matter (hyles); 5. Of Continuity (continuationis); 6. Of Acquisition (ad lucrum), or Of Need (indigentiae); 7. Of Greater Congregation; 8. Of Lesser Congregation; 9. The Magnetic Motion; 10. Of Avoidance (fugae); 11. Of Assimilation, or Self-multiplication, or Simple Generation; 12. Of Excitement; 13. Of Impression; 14. Of Configuration or Position (situs); 15. Of Penetration (Per-transitionis), or Motion according to the Passages (secundum meatus); 16. The Royal or Political Motion (by which the predominant and ruling parts in any body bridle, conquer, subjugate, and regulate the rest, and compel them to unite, to separate, to stand still, to move, to take their places, not according to their own inclinations, but with a reference to, and as may be most conducive to the welfare of, that ruling part); 17. The Spontaneous Motion of Rotation (with its nine different species, all likewise enumerated); 18. Of Trepidation; 19. Of Repose (decubitus), or of Áversion to Motion (exhorrentiae motus).

25. Prompting Instances (Instantiae Innuentes).

26. Many-sided Instances (Instantiae Polychrestae, literally Instances of many uses.) The ways in which man acts upon natural bodies (besides their mere application to and removal from one another), are stated to be seven: 1. By the exclusion of whatever impedes or disturbs; 2. By compressions, extensions, agitations, and such like; 3. By heat and cold; 4. By detention in a suitable place ; 5. By checking and regulating motion ; 6. By means of special agreements, or sympathies, in things (consensus); 7. By a temperate and due alternation, and a series and succession of all these ways. These seven methods are all illustrated at great length.

27. Magical Instances; being those in which the matter or efficient cause is slight or small in comparison of the magnitude of the work or effect produced.

And so much for the subject of prerogative instances. It must be observed, that in this our new machine for the understanding, we deliver a logic, not a philosophy: but as our logic directs the understanding, and instructs it, not like the common logic, to catch and lay hold of abstracted notions, as it were by the slender twigs, or tendrils, of the mind; but really enters and cuts through nature, and discovers the virtues and actions of bodies, together with their laws, as determined in matter; so that this knowledge flows not only from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things, and the universe; hence it is no wonder that, in order to give examples and illustrations of our art, we every where employ physical considerations and experiments.

And now we should proceed to the helps and rectifications of induction, then to concretes, latent processes, concealed structures, &c., as mentioned in order under the Twenty-first Aphorism; that at length, like faithful guardians, we might possess mankind of their fortunes, and release and free the understanding from its minority, upon which an amendment of the state and condition of mankind, and an enlargement of their power over nature, must necessarily ensue. For by the fall man at once forfeited his innocency and his dominion over the creatures, though both of them are, in some measure, recoverable, even in this life: the former by religion and faith, and the latter by arts and sciences. For the world was not