Notes

Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 1 rp. 259
	†1 That the physician is "naturæ minister", {phyesos hyperetes}, is quoted more than 
once from Hippocrates by Galen, xv. 369, xvi. 35 (Kuhn): the first passage in his commentary on 
Hippoc. De Aliment. iii., the second in his do. De Humor. i.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 2 Para. 1/2 rp. 259
	†2 This antithesis was probably suggested by Publius Syrus's gnome:--"Casta ad virum 
matrona parendo imperat".
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 2 Para. 2/2 rp. 259
	[The phrase occurs above, it will be noted, towards the end of the "Plan of the Work" and 
again below, Aph. 129. Dean Kitchin cites the parallel of Livy's account of Hannibal (xxi. 4) as 
"parendum atque imperandum" in his difficulties.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 3 rp. 259
	†3 For some remarks upon the first four Aphorisms, see the Preface, p. 223.--J. S. [It will 
be observed that below, Aph. 75, Bacon appears to reject the formula here set down. In the parallel 
passage in the De Augmentis (B. II. c. ii.) he attempts to combine the two positions.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 4 rp. 259
	†4 [Dean Kitchin has pointed out that "Bacon's remarks were being falsified at the very 
time he wrote. Mechanics had produced fly-clocks, telescopes, and other useful contrivances. 
Mathematics boasted of Kepler and Galileo; and the discoveries of Harvey and Gilbert were 
opening out a new world for medical research; but see p. 243".--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 5 rp. 260
	†5 Literally, "are a thing insane". The meaning appears to be, that these speculations 
being founded upon such an inadequate conception of the case, must necessarily be so wide of the 
truth that they would seem like mere madness if we could only compare them with it: like the aim 
of a man blindfolded to bystanders looking on.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 6 rp. 261
	†6 [Compare the criticism of J. S. Mill on this Aphorism, in his Logic, B. VI. ch. v. § 5.--
ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 7 rp. 261
	†7 [See above pp. 118, 223, as to the signification of "Idols." The word idola, as used by 
Bacon, means (as the context here shows) not objects of worship, but illusions or false 
appearances--the original sense of the Greek word. As Professor Fowler notes, Bacon in his 
Cogitata et Visa (14th par.) uses the word spectra with the same force as elsewhere idola. Compare 
Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. III. ch. iii. § 60, where it is pointed out that 
the error of reading "idol" as "worshipped object" has been fallen into by Playfair, Brown, Dugald 
Stewart, and others.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 8 Para. 1/2 rp. 263
	†8 "Diceva in quei tempi Papa Alessandro sesto che i Francesi havevano corso l'Italia con 
gli speroni di legno et presola col gesso: dicendo cosi perchè pigliando essi gli alloggiamenti nelle 
città loro furieri segnavano le porte delle case col gesso; et cavalcando per loro diporto i gentil' 
huomini per le terre à sollazzo usavano di portare nelle scarpette à calcagni certi stecchi di legno 
appuntati, delli quali in vece di speroni si servivano per andare le cavalcature."--Nardi, Vita di 
Malespini, [1597,] p. 18.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 8 Para. 2/2 rp. 263
	In an epitome of the history of Charles the Eighth, which will be found in the "Archives 
curieuses" of Cember, vol. i. p. 197, and which was apparently written about the beginning of the 
seventeenth century, the remark ascribed to Alexander the Sixth by Nardi and Bacon is mentioned 
as a popular saying.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 9 rp. 263
	†9 These four idols have been compared to the four hindrances to truth enumerated by 
Roger Bacon. These are, the use of insufficient authority, custom, popular opinions, and the 
concealment of ignorance and display of apparent knowledge. The last two may be likened to the 
idols of the market-place and the theatre. But the principle of the classification is different. [See on 
this subject the Preface, p. 223. Roger Bacon's words are as follows:--
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 9 rp. 263
	"Quatuor vero maxima sunt comprehendendæ veritatis offendicula, quæ omnem 
quemcunque sapientem impediunt, et vix aliquem permittunt ad verum titulum sapientiæ 
pervenire: viz. fragilis et indignæ auctoritatis exemplum, consuetudinis diuturnitas vulgi sensus 
imperiti, et propriæ ignorantiæ occultatio cum ostentatione sapientiæ apparentis. His omnis homo 
involvitur, omnis status occupatur. Nam quilibet singulis artibus vitæ et studii et omnis negotii 
tribus pessimis ad eandem conclusionem utitur argumentis: scil. hoc exemplificatum est per 
majores, hoc consuetum est, hoc vulgatum est, ergo tenendum. . . . Si vero hæc tria refellantur 
aliquando magnificâ rationis potentia, quartum semper in promptu est et in ore cujuslibet, ut 
quilibet ignorantiam suam excuset, et licet nihil dignum sciat illud tamen magnificet imprudenter 
[impudenter?] et sic saltem suæ stultitiæ infelici solatio veritatem opprimat et elidat."--Opus 
Majus, l. i.--J. S.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 10 rp. 264
	†10 Protagoras. See Hippias major. [Professor Fowler justly notes that "if this is meant to 
represent the dictum of Protagoras it does so most inadequately". Protagoras was simply asserting 
the relativity of knowledge.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 11 rp. 264
	†11 [Compare Plato, Republic, B. vii.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 12 rp. 264
	†12 This was Mr. Ellis's translation of prout disponitur in hominibus singulis; supposing 
Bacon to allude to Averroës' doctrine of one intellect, whereof each man had an undivided share. I 
should myself have understood disponitur as referring to the disposition of the parts of the spirit in 
itself, not to the distribution of it in different persons; as in the expression well disposed, ill 
disposed, etc.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 13 rp. 264
	†13 See Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Logicos, i. § 133; and compare ii. 286, of the same 
treatise.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 14 rp. 265
	†14 [The Bohn editor remarks that "though Kepler had, when Bacon wrote this, already 
demonstrated his three great laws concerning the elliptical path of the planets, neither Bacon nor 
Descartes seems to have known or assented to his discoveries".--Ed.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 15 rp. 265
	†15 It does not appear in what sense Bacon uses the word "draco". In its ordinary 
acceptation in old astronomy, it denoted the great circle which is approximately the projection on 
the sphere of the moon's orbit. The ascending node was called the caput draconis, and the 
descending the cauda draconis. The same terms were occasionally applied to the nodes of the 
planetary orbits. It is not improbable that Bacon intended to complain of the rejection of spirals of 
double curvature, or helices, which traced on the surface of the sphere might represent inequalities 
in latitude. Compare (Nov. Org. II. 48) what is said of the variations of which the "motus rotationis 
spontaneus" admits.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 16 rp. 265
	†16 The orb of the element of fire was supposed to lie above that of the element of air, 
and therefore might be said "non subjici sensui." The quaternion of elements follows directly from 
the quaternion of elementary qualities: namely, hot, cold, moist, dry. For these may be combined 
two and two in six different ways; two of these combinations are rejected as simply contradictory 
(viz. hot and cold, moist and dry); and to each of the other combinations corresponds one of the 
four elements.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 17 rp. 265
	†17 This doctrine of the decupla ratio of density of the elements was suggested by a 
passage in Aristotle [De Gen. et Cor. ii. 6.]. It is found in all books of mediaeval physics. Cf. the 
Margarita Philosophioe, ix. c. 4. or Alsted's Encyclopoedia, where it is thus expressed: "Proportio 
elementorum ad se invicem ratione transmutationis est decupla, ratione magnitudinis non satis 
explorata." The transmutability of one element into another is an essential part of the Peripatetic 
doctrine of elements. It is found also in the Timæus.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 18 rp. 265
	†18 Rather perhaps "prejudging the matter to a great and pernicious extent, in order that," 
etc. (non sine magno et pernicioso præjudicio, quo, etc.)--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 19 rp. 265
	†19 This story is told of Diagoras by Cicero, De Nat. Deor. iii., and of Diogenes the 
Cynic by Diogenes Laërtius.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 20 rp. 266
	†20 Thus Leibnitz derived from the principle of sufficient reason a proof of the infinite 
extent of the universe, alleging that if it were of finite dimensions no reason could be given for its 
occupying any one region of space rather than any other.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 21 rp. 266
	†21 In the phrase "subtilitas de lineis semper divisibilibus," reference is made to Aristotle, 
who in several places in his writings (particularly in the tract {peri atomon grammaton} maintains 
that in theory every magnitude is divisible without limit.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 22 rp. 266
	†22 This censure appears to be expressed without sufficient limitation; for it is difficult to 
assent to the assertion that the notion of the final cause, considered generally, is more ex naturâ 
hominis than that of the efficient. The subject is one of which it is difficult to speak accurately; but 
it may be said that wherever we think that we recognise a tendency towards a fulfilment or 
realisation of an idea, there the notion of the final cause comes in. It can only be from inadvertence 
that Professor Owen has set the doctrine of the final cause as it were in antithesis to that of the 
unity of type; by the former he means the doctrine that the suitability of an animal to its mode of 
life is the one thing aimed at or intended in its structure. It cannot be doubted that Aristotle would 
have recognised the preservation of the type as not less truly a final cause than the preservation of 
the species or than the well-being of the individual. The final cause connects itself with what in the 
language of modern German philosophy is expressed by the phrase "the Idea in Nature".
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 23 rp. 267
	†23 Heraclitus apud Plut., De Esu Carnium. This doctrine of Idols is spoken of with great 
disrespect by Spinoza. He asserts that neither Des Cartes nor Bacon ever perceived the true source 
of error, and adds: "De Bacone parum dicam, qui de hâc re admodum confuse loquitur, et fere nihil 
probat, sed tantum narrat:" and concludes by saying, "quas adhuc alias causas adsignat (he has just 
enumerated three of the Idols of the Tribe) facile omnes ad unicam Cartesii reduci possunt; scilicet 
quia voluntas humana est libera et latior intellectu; sive, ut ipse Verulamius magis confuse 
loquitur, quia intellectus luminis sicci non est, sed recipit infusionem a voluntate". See Spinoza to 
Oldenburg, ep. 2. vol. ii. p. 146, of Bruder's edition.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 24 rp. 267
	†24 Compare Advanc. of Learning: "That the spirit of man being of an equal and uniform 
substance doth usually suppose and feign in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in 
truth".--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 25 rp. 268
	†25 [This is one of several instances (Aph. 64, 70) in which Bacon speaks slightingly of 
Gilbert, whose work on the Magnet (1600) has stood scientific test so much better than most of 
Bacon's own scientific speculation. Whewell, in a letter to Spedding of Nov. 17, 1848, says of 
Bacon: "Almost the only matter for which I find reason to blame him is his injustice to Gilbert, 
whom he scarcely ever mentions, except to blame him for the narrowness of his method, but 
whose philosophy was really almost as wide as Bacon's own, and solid precisely on account of his 
starting from such a reality as magnetic forces" (Life of Whewell, 2nd ed. 1882, p. 355). Spedding 
in reply offers an interesting defence of Bacon (Id. pp. 358, 361-2). In the third edition of his 
History of the Inductive Sciences (1857) Whewell does not take up the same position; he even 
speaks of "Bacon's contemporary, Gilbert, whom he frequently praises as a philosopher" (i. 297), 
though in the later edition of the Philosophy of Discovery (1860, pp. 114-115) he leaves standing 
his blame of Bacon's unfairness.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 26 rp. 270
	†26 [This is one of the passages of Bacon on which Macaulay is justly severe. "Bacon's 
promise," adds Professor Fowler, "never has been and never can be fulfilled."--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 27 rp. 271
	†27 This censure refers to Aristotle's definition of the soul (De Anima, ii. 1).
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 28 rp. 271
	†28 "Simplicis corporis simplicem esse motum" is an important principle in Aristotelian 
physics, as one of the bases on which the system of the universe was made to depend. See, for 
instance, Melanchthon's Initia Doctr. Physicæ, p. 41.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 29 rp. 271
	†29 Admulta pertinens. In the formation of such notions many things have been taken 
into account.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 30 rp. 272
	†30 [Professor Fowler notes that the allusion here is probably to Dr. Robert Fludd. See 
notes to B. II. Aph. xiii. § 38, and to De Augmentis, B. II. c. xiii.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 31 rp. 272
	†31 [See Luke xxiv. 5. The phrase occurs several times in Bacon.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 32 rp. 272
	†32 [Professor Fowler remarks that "We must recollect that sentiments of this kind, which 
with us have become commonplaces, were in Bacon's time novel and almost paradoxical"--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 33 rp. 272
	†33 The elementary qualities are four in number,--hot, cold, dry, moist; and it is by 
combining them two and two that the Peripatetic conception of the nature of each element is 
formed. Thus fire is hot and dry, water cold and moist, etc. All the other qualities of bodies, which 
result from the combination and mutual modification of the elementary and primary qualities, were 
called secondary qualities.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 34 rp. 272
	†34 [Compare Newton's Optics, B. iii.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 35 rp. 274
	†35 See Cicero. De Nat. Deor. i. c. 8.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 36 rp. 275
	†36 [As Professor Fowler notes, this is unjust as regards the Arabs, whose services to 
chemistry and to mathematics (as regards algebra) are of real importance.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 37 rp. 275
	†37 M. Chasles appears to have shown this with respect to the principle of position in 
arithmetic. We derive it, according to him, not from the Hindoos or Arabs, but from the Greeks. It 
is remarkable that the Chinese have from the earliest times known how to express any number by 
means of a few characters.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 38 rp. 276
	†38 Diog. Lært. in Platon. c. 18.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 39 rp. 276
	†39 Plato, Timæus.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 40 Para. 1/2 rp. 276
	†40 "Repertis deinde medicinæ remediis homines de rationibus eorum disserere coepisse: 
nec post rationem medicinam esse inventam, sed post inventam medicinam rationem esse 
quæsitam."--Celsus, Præfatio.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 40 Para. 2/2 rp. 277
	But this remark is not made by Celsus as the expression of his own opinion; on the 
contrary it occurs in his statement of the views entertained by the empirical school of medicine, to 
which he is decidedly opposed. The error of citing Celsus as an authority for it is repeated in 
several parts of Bacon's works. [See among others De Augmentis, v. 2.--J. S.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 41 rp. 278
	†41 The reference is to Galen, who in his treatise De Natural. Facultatibus contrasts the 
inwardly formative powers of nature with the external operations of art. [Compare Aph. iv., where 
Bacon advances the very proposition he here disparages.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 42 rp. 278
	†42 Bacon does not mean that the votes of a majority are necessarily valid in matters of 
divinity or politics, but merely that, from the nature of the case, the argument from consent has 
more weight in these than in purely scientific questions.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 43 rp. 278
	†43 [See Plutarch's Life of Phocion, c. 8.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 44 rp. 279
	†44 Contriverunt: wore them hard, I suppose; like a path much trodden.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 45 Para. 1/2 rp. 281
	†45 This remark is not, I think, given by Bacon as a quotation, and it is probable that he 
did not derive it from any earlier writer. But in the works of several of the scientific reformers we 
find similar reflexions. Of writers earlier than Bacon or contemporary with him, we may refer to 
Gilbert, to Galileo, to the Apologia pro Galileo of Campanella, and particularly to the Cena di 
Cenere of Giordano Bruno. The following passage from the last-named writer, in which he appears 
to have anticipated Bacon, has been referred to by Dr. Whewell in the Philosophy of the Inductive 
Sciences. "Sia come la si vuole," says one of the interlocutors in Bruno's dialogue, "io non voglio 
discostar mi dal parer degli antichi, perche dice il saggio, Ne l'antiquità è la sapienza." To which 
another replies: "E soggiunge 'In molti anni la prudenza'. Se voi intendeste bene qualche dite, 
vedreste che dal vostro fondamento s'inferisce il contrario di quel che pensate. Voglio dire che noi 
siamo pi· vecchi ed abbiamo pi· lunga età, che i nostri predecessori."--Cena di Cenere, i. p. 132 of 
Wagner's edition of G. Bruno.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 45 Para. 2/2 rp. 281
	The idea that the early ages were the world's youth is to be found in the second book of 
Esdras, or is at any rate directly suggested by an expression which occurs there: "Seculum perdidit 
juventutem suam, et tempora appropinquant senescere."--2 Esdras, xiv. 10. The same idea occurs 
in Casmann's Problemata Marina, which was published in 1546. "Si . . . antiquiorum dignitas ex 
tempore major videtur, id nostros qui hodie docent posteriores unice commendabit, nam tempus . . 
. doctius et prudentius evadit ex continuo progressu, ut senescens judicio sit acriore, solidiore, et 
maturiore." [Note to parallel passage in De Augmentis, B. i.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 46 rp. 282
	†46 [See Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticæ, lib. xii. c. 11.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 47 rp. 282
	†47 Compare Sylv. Sylvar. § 888.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 48 rp. 282
	†48 It has been said that Porson affirmed that distillation was known to the ancients. 
Dutens of course maintains that it was: but the passage he quotes from Dioscorides merely refers 
to sublimation. The word alembic is, as he remarks, a compound of the Arabic article with the 
Greek word {ambix}, operculum; thus resembling in formation the word "almagest" and some 
others. But no valid conclusion can be drawn from hence. See Dutens, Origine des Découvertes, 
etc., p. 187 of the London edition. See a very interesting account of the history of distillation in 
Humboldt's Examen critique de l'Histoire de la Géographie, etc., vol. ii. p. 306.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 49 rp. 283
	†49 Thus we find Aristotle speaks of philosophy as having sprung up after all the wants 
of life were satisfied. See the beginning of the Metaphysics.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 50 rp. 285
	†50 [See Aristophanes, Clouds, 372-383.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 51 rp. 285
	†51 [Cf. Lactantius, Div. Instit. iii. 24; Augustine, De civ. Dei, xvi. 9.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 52 rp. 285
	†52 Compare Kepler in the introduction to his great work De Stellâ Martis:--"In theologiâ 
quidem authoritatum, in Philosophiâ vero rationum esse momenta ponderanda. Sanctus igitur 
Lactantius qui terram negavit esse rotundam: Sanctus Augustinus qui rotunditate concessâ negavit 
tamen Antipodas: Sanctum Officium hodiernorum qui exilitate terræ concessâ negant tamen ejus 
motum: at magis mihi sancta Veritas qui terram et rotundam et Antipodibus circumhabitam et 
contemptissimæ parvitatis esse et denique per sidera ferri, salvo Doctorum ecclesiæ respectu, ex 
philosophiâ demonstro." See for a defence of St. Boniface, touching the story of the Antipodes and 
Virgilius Bishop of Saltzburg, Fromondus De Orbe Terræ Immobili, c. 4.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 53 rp. 287
	†53 {Ek Dios archomestha}--Aratus, Phenom. i. 1.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 54 rp. 288
	†54 Demosthenes: see the first Philippic, p. 40, and the third, p. 112. Ed. Reisk.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 55 rp. 288
	†55 Stobæus, Florileg. § 82. Compare De Augmentis, v. 2.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 56 rp. 288
	†56 Æschines, De Corona, p. 72. Ed. H. Stephen.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 57 rp. 288
	†57 Lib. ix. c. 17.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 58 rp. 290
	†58 i.e. particular cases.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 59 rp. 291
	†59 This is one of many passages which show that Bacon was very far from asserting that 
he was the first to propose an inductive method. It is remarkable that M. de St. Hilaire in his 
translation of the treatise De Animâ of Aristotle has repeated the popular assertion that Bacon 
claimed to be the first discoverer of induction.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 60 rp. 293
	†60 Bacon refers to what Peter Martyr Anghiera has related, that Columbus, observing 
the west-winds which blow at certain times of the year on the coast of Portugal, came to the 
conclusion that there must be land to generate them.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 61 rp. 294
	†61 See De Aug. iv. 3. for a rather fuller mention of these philosophers, and the note upon 
the passage. See also, for Telesius, the preface to De Principiis atque Originibus; for Patricius, the 
Descriptio Globi intellectualis; for Severinus, the Temporis Partus Masculus.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 62 rp. 296
	†62 Plin. Hist. Nat. i. ad init. Compare also Aristotle, De Part. Animal. i. 5.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 63 rp. 297
	†63 [Philip of Macedon. See Plutarch, Apophthegmata.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 64 rp. 297
	†64 [Said by Philocrates of Demosthenes. Demos. De Falsa Legatione.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 65 rp. 298
	†65 Ipsissimæ res. I think this must have been Bacon's meaning, though not a meaning 
which the word can properly bear.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 66 rp. 299
	†66 [Mr. Ellis suggested that the meaning here may be "synthesis and analysis". Professor 
Fowler, however, has pointed out that what is meant is "affirmation and negation", following the 
terminology of Aristotle.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 67 rp. 299
	†67 This passage is important because it shows that Bacon proposed to apply his method 
to mental phenomena; which is in itself a sufficient refutation of M. Cousin's interpretation of the 
passage in which, when censuring the writings of the schoolmen, he compares them to the self-
evolved web of the spider. I have elsewhere spoken more at length of this passage. [See preface, p. 
230.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 68 rp. 300
	†68 Lucretius, vi. 1-3.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 69 rp. 300
	†69 Prov. xxv. 2.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 1 Foot. 70 rp. 301
	†70 Compare Valerius Terminus, ch. 22:--"That it is true that interpretation is the very 
natural and direct intention, action, and progression of the understanding, delivered from 
impediments; and that all anticipation is but a deflexion or declination by accident". Also Adv. of 
Learn. (2d book):--"For he that shall attentively observe how the mind doth gather this excellent 
dew of knowledge, like unto that which the poet speaketh of, Aërii mellis coelestia dona, distilling 
and contriving it out of particulars natural and artificial, as the flowers of the field and garden, 
shall find that the mind of herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much better than 
they describe it".--J. S.

Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 1 rp. 302
	†1 This is the only passage in which I have met with the phrase natura naturans used as it 
is here. With the later schoolmen, as with Spinoza, it denotes God considered as the causa 
immanens of the universe, and therefore, according to the latter at least, not hypostatically distinct 
from it. (On the Pantheistic tendency occasionally perceptible among the schoolmen, see 
Neander's Essay on Scotus Erigena in the Berlin Memoirs.) Bacon applies it to the Form, 
considered as the causa immanens of the properties of the body. I regret not having been able to 
trace the history of this remarkable phrase. It does not occur, I think, in St. Thomas Aquinas, 
though I have met with it in an index to his Summa; the passage referred to containing a quotation 
from St. Augustine, in which the latter speaks of "ea natura quæ creavit omnes cæteras instituitque 
naturas". (V. St. Aug., De Trin. xiv. 9.) Neither does it occur, so far as I am aware, where we 
might have expected it, in the De Divisione Naturæ of Scotus Erigena. Vossius, De Vitiis Latini 
Sermonis, notices its use among the schoolmen, but gives no particular reference. [The phrase in 
question does occur in Thomas Aquinas;--"Etiam Deus a quibusdam dicitur, natura naturans" 
(Summa: Prima Secundæ, Quæst. 85, art. 6). And see Hauréau, Histoire de la philosophie 
scolastique, 1872-80, i. 189, for a trace of the idea in John Scotus and others in the ninth century.--
ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 2 rp. 302
	†2 See General Preface, § 7, p. 15.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 3 rp. 302
	†3 The possibility of transmutation, long and strenuously denied, though certainly on no 
sufficient grounds, is now generally admitted. "There was a time when this fundamental doctrine 
of the alchemists was opposed to known analogies. It is now no longer so opposed to them, only 
some stages beyond their present development."--Faraday, Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, p. 
106.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 4 Para. 1/2 rp. 304
	†4 Let us adopt, for distinctness of expression, the theory commonly known as 
Boscovich's,--a theory which forms the basis of the ordinary mathematical theories of light, of 
heat, and of electricity. This theory supposes all bodies to be constituted of inextended atoms or 
centres of force, each of which attracts or repels and is attracted or repelled by all the rest. All the 
phenomena of nature are thus ascribed to mechanical forces, and all the differences which can be 
conceived to exist between two bodies,--gold say, and silver,--can only arise either from the 
different configuration of the centres of force, or from the different law by which they act on one 
another.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 4 Para. 2/2 rp. 304
	Assuming the truth of this theory, the question, why are some bodies transparent and 
others not so--in other words, what is the essential cause of transparency, which is precisely what 
Bacon would call the form of transparency,--is to be answered by saying that a certain 
configuration of the centres of force, combined with the existence of a certain law of force, 
constitutes such a system that the vibrations of the luminiferous ether pass through it. What this 
configuration or this law may be, is a question which the present state of mathematical physics 
does not enable us to answer; but there is no reason a priori why in time to come it may not receive 
a complete solution. If it does we shall then have arrived at a knowledge, on Boscovich's theory, of 
the form of transparency. Those who are acquainted with the recent progress of physical science 
know that questions of this kind, so far from being rejected as the questions of a mere dreamer, are 
thought to be of the highest interest and importance, and that no inconsiderable advance has 
already been made towards the solution of some at least among them.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 5 rp. 304
	†5 "On pourroit trouver le moyen de contrefaire l'or en sorte qu'il satisferoit à toutes les 
épreuves qu'on en a jusqu'ici; mais on pourroit aussi découvrir alors une nouvelle manière d'essai, 
qui donneroit le moyen de distinguer l'or naturel de cet or fait par artifice . . . nous pourrions avoir 
une définition plus parfaite de l'or que nous n'en avons présentement."--Leibnitz, Nouv. Ess. sur 
l'Entendement, c. 2.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 6 rp. 305
	†6 The distinction between the Latent Process and Latent Schematism in the absolute way 
in which it is here stated, involves an assumption which the progress of science will probably show 
to be unfounded; namely, that bodies apparently at rest are so molecularly. Whereas all analogy 
and the fact that they act on the senses by acting mechanically on certain deferent media combine 
to show that we ought to consider bodies even at rest as dynamical and not as statical entities. On 
this view there is no difficulty in understanding the nature of what appear to be spontaneous 
changes, because every dynamical system carries within itself the seeds of its own decay, except in 
particular cases; that is, the type of motion so alters, with greater or less rapidity, that the sensible 
qualities associated with it pass away. The introduction of the idea of unstable equilibrium in 
connexion with organic chemistry, was a step in the direction which molecular Physics will 
probably soon take.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 7 rp. 306
	†7 In Bacon's time only certain things were supposed to belong to natural species, all 
others being merely elementary. A ruby has a specific character, is specificatum; common stone or 
rock non ita;--they are mere modifications of the element earth, etc. A "specific virtue" is a virtue 
given by a thing's specific character, transcending the qualities of the elements it consists of. [See 
note on De Augm. ii. 3.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 8 Para. 1/3 rp. 308
	†8 "That seeds when germinating, as they lie heaped in large masses evolve a 
considerable degree of heat, is a fact long known from the malting of grain; but the cause of it was 
incorrectly sought for in a process of fermentation. To Göppert (Ueber Wärmeentwickelung in der 
lebenden Pflanze) is due the merit of having demonstrated that such is not the case, but that the 
evolution of heat is connected with the process of germination. Seeds of very different chemical 
composition (of different grains, of Hemp, Clover, Spergula, Brassica, etc.), made to germinate in 
quantities of about a pound, became heated, at a temperature of the air of 48°--65°, to 59°--120° 
Fahr.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 8 Para. 2/3 rp. 308
	"It was likewise shown by Göppert that full-grown plants also, such as Oats, Maize, 
Cyperus esculentus, Hyoscyamus, Sedum acre, etc., laid together in heaps and covered with bad 
conductors of heat, cause a thermometer placed among them to rise about 2°--7° (Spergula as 
much as 22°) above the temperature of the air . . .
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 8 Para. 3/3 rp. 308
	"A very great evolution of heat occurs in the blossom of the Aroideæ. This is considerable 
even in our Arum maculatum, and according to Dutrochet's researches (Comptes Rendus, 1839, 
695.) rises to 25°--27° above the temperature of the air. But this phenomenon is seen in a far 
higher degree in Colocasia odora, in which plant it has been investigated by Brougniart (Nouv. 
Ann. d. Muséum, iii.). Vrolik and Vriese (nn. des Sc. Nat., sec. ser. v. 134.) and Van Beek and 
Bersgma (Obs. thermo-élect. s. l'élév. de températ. des Fleurs d. Colocas. odor. 1838). These last 
observers found the maximum of heat 129°, when the temperature of the air was 79°."--Mohl On 
the Vegetable Cell, translated by Arthur Henfrey, Lond. 1852, pp. 101 and 102.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 9 rp. 309
	†9 The analogy which Bacon here remarks, arises probably, in the second instance from 
the desiccative power due to the strong affinity of alcohol for water. The French chemist Lassaigne 
found, I believe, that alcohol extracted a red colouring matter from unboiled lobster shells; but I 
am not aware that the modus operandi has in this case been explained. But by far the most 
remarkable case of what may be called simulated heat, is furnished by the action of carbonic acid 
gas on the skin. Of late years baths of this gas have been used medicinally; but M. Boussingault 
long since remarked the sensation of heat which it produces. He states that at Quindiu in New 
Granada there are sulphur works, and that at various points nearly pure carbonic gas escapes from 
shallow excavations in the surface, containing, however, a trace of hydro-sulphuric acid; that the 
temperature of this issuing stream of gas is lower than the external air, but that the sensation is the 
same as that produced by a hot-air bath of perhaps from 40° to 45° or 48° Centigrade (104° to 118° 
Fahr.). As this effect has not been noticed in carbonic acid gas prepared artificially, it is probable 
that it requires for its production the gas to be in motion; so that the necessary conditions are not 
present when the hand is inserted into a jar of the gas.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 10 rp. 309
	†10 Nor burns the sharp cold of the northern blast. Virgil, Georg. i. 93.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 11 rp. 309
	†11 M. Melloni has recently succeeded in making sensible the moon's calorific rays.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 12 Para. 1/2 rp. 310
	†12 Aristotle seems to be the first person who mentions this notion. See the Problems, 
xxvi. 36; where, however, he speaks of Athos and {oi toioutoi}, and not of Olympus. The passages 
on the subject are to be found in Ideler's Meteorologia veterum Græcorum et Romanorum (Berlin, 
1832), at p. 81. Compare his edition of the Meteorologies of Aristotle, where he has given in 
extenso the passage in which Geminus speaks in the same manner of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, 
and also a similar statement made by Philoponus with respect to Olympus. The whole class of 
stories seem (as Ideler following Lobeck remarks) to have somewhat of a mythical character. G. 
Bruno apparently confounded Philoponus with Alexander Aphrodisiensis, when in the Cena di 
Cenere he asserted that the latter mentions the sacrifices on the top of Olympus. In the passage on 
the subject in which we might expect to find him doing so, namely in his Commentary on the 
Meteorologies, i. c. 3, he does not specify any particular mountain.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 12 Para. 2/2 rp. 310
	That there is no wind nor rain on Olympus is mentioned as a common opinion by St. 
Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xvi. 27. Compare Dante, Purg. xxviii. 112.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 13 rp. 310
	†13 This of course refers to Barentz's expedition in search of a North-East passage. He 
passed the winter 1596-7 at Nova Zembla. [In Barentz's first voyage, 1594, he was stopped by the 
ice on the 13th of July, and obliged to return. In his third voyage, 1596, his first considerable 
check was on the 19th of July; after which he only succeeded in coasting round the northern point 
of Nova Zembla till the 26th of August, where the ship stuck fast and they were forced to leave her 
and winter on the island, and return in their boats in the beginning of June, 1597. See the letter 
signed by the company: "Three Voyages by the North East," etc., Hakluyt Society, 1853, p. 191. 
This letter was begun on the 1st of June: "Having till this day stayed for the time and opportunity 
in hope to get our ship loose, and now are clean out of hope thereof, for that it lieth shut up and 
enclosed in the ice," etc.: and ended on the 13th, "notwithstanding that while we were making 
ready to be gone, we had great wind out of the west and north-west, and yet find no alteration nor 
bettering in the weather, and therefore in the last extremity we left it". This narrative, written by 
Gerrit de Veer, one of the party, was first published in Dutch in 1598; translated into Latin and 
French the same year; into Italian in 1599; into English in 1609. See Introduction, p. cxviii. "Per 
initia mensis Junii" would have been more accurate.--J. S.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 14 rp. 311
	†14 Mersenne says the greater number of the experiments mentioned in the second book 
of the Novum Organum had already been made, and mentions particularly, as if he had himself 
tried it, the reflexion of all kinds of heat by a burning mirror. He also asserts that light is always 
accompanied by heat. De la Vérité des Sciences (1625), p. 210.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 15 rp. 311
	†15 That there was no reason for supposing comets to be more than merely meteoric 
exhalations is the thesis maintained, and doubtless with great ability, by Galileo in his Saggiatore,-
-the true view, or at least a nearer appproach to it, having been propounded by the Jesuit Grassi. 
Bacon perhaps alludes to this controversy.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 16 rp. 312
	†16 [This false explanation is one of Bacon's most gratuitous miscarriages. As the 
phenomenon admittedly does not always result on concussion, the inference breaks down--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 17 rp. 312
	†17 The phrase "pulmo marino" is as much Italian as Spanish,--except of course, that in 
Italian "pulmo" is replaced by "polmo,"--and is merely a translation of {pneumon thalassios}, 
which is used by Dioscorides, De Materiâ Medicâ, ii. 39. The luminous appearance arises 
apparently from serpent medusæ, which in texture are like the substance of the lungs, from which 
circumstance they derive the name which Dioscorides gives them. Cf. De Aug. iv. 3.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 18 rp. 313
	†18 [This is of course an error.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 19 rp. 314
	†19 This ebullition is of course not the result of the heat, but arises from the 
disengagement of gas during the action of the acid on the metal.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 20 rp. 314
	†20 Aqua regia is a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids. Its power of dissolving gold 
is ascribed by Davy to the liberation of chlorine by the neutral action of the two acids. The 
different result in the case of silver arises from the insolubility of chloride of silver.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 21 rp. 314
	†21 In the Annals of Philosophy a case is mentioned in which the effluvia arising on the 
opening of a large bark store at Guayra were sufficiently powerful to cure a bad fever. [Mr. Ellis 
puts this note to the original without remarking that it is of contrary effect to Bacon's statement.--
ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 22 rp. 315
	†22 [Another erroneous explanation. The difference is now known to be one of 
conductivity.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 23 rp. 316
	†23 This is true of eremacausis rather than of real putrefaction. But the distinction 
belongs to the recent history of chemistry.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 24 rp. 316
	†24 The person here referred to is Constantius II., the son of Constantine the Great. The 
burning heat of the fever of which he died is mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xxi. c. 15.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 25 rp. 316
	†25 [Orig. struthiones. Struthio commonly means an ostrich, but Mr. Spedding surmised 
it to stand here for strutheus, the sparrow.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 26 rp. 316
	†26 By some Venus was accounted cold and moist. Vide Margarita Phil. p. 627. Ptolemy, 
however, confirms what Bacon says of her.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 27 rp. 317
	†27 This astrological fancy was probably suggested by a wish to explain why July is 
hotter than June. In the division of the Zodiac into trigons each of which corresponds to one of the 
elements, Leo forms one of the corners of the fiery trigon; and it is moreover the sun's proper sign.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 28 rp. 318
	†28 The only explanation of this is, that the focal length of the lens lay between a span 
and half a span.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 29 rp. 318
	†29 I am very much inclined to think that Bacon heard of the vitrum calendare from 
Fludd, or à Fluctibus, as he is called in Latin, who returned from Italy in [1605], and in whose 
philosophy, built upon certain abstract notions of rarefaction and condensation, perpetual reference 
is made to the air-thermometer, to which he gives the same name.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 30 rp. 319
	†30 In consequence of this description of the Vitrum Calendare, the invention of the 
Thermometer has been ascribed to Bacon; but without good reason. Fludd was the first to publish 
an account of the Thermometer; but Nelli says, and (admitting his authorities) truly, that Galileo's 
invention was anterior to any publication of Fludd's. Nelli speaks of a letter preserved in the 
library of his family "in copiâ", which Castelli addressed to Cesarina in 1638. Castelli says that, 
more than thirty-five years before, Galileo had shown him an experiment which he describes; 
namely, the rise of the water into an inverted tube with a bulb at one extremity, when the open end 
of the tube is put into a vessel of water, and goes on, "del quale effetto il medesimo Signor Galileo 
si era servito per fabbricare un Istromento da esaminare i gradi del caldo e del freddo". Thus far 
Castelli; but how long after the original experiment the instrument was made, does not appear 
from his statement. Nelli also refers to Viviani's Life of Galileo, wherein it is said that Galileo 
invented the Thermometer between 1593 and 1597. It has not, I think, been remarked that the rise 
of water under the circumstances of Galileo's original experiment had already been described in 
Porta's Natural Magic; though, as is usually the case with Porta, one cannot be sure whether he had 
ever actually seen it. "Possumus etiam solo calore aquam ascendere facere. Sit dolium supra 
turrim, vel ligneum, vel argillaceum aut æreum, quod melius erit, et canalem habeat in medio, qui 
descendat inferius usque ad aquam, et in eâ submersus sit, sed adglutinatus, ne respiret. Calefiat 
vas superius vel sole vel igne, nam aër, qui in alvo continetur, rarefit et foras prolabitur, unde 
aquam in bullas tumere videbimus, mox absentiâ solis ubi vas refrigescit, aër condensatur, et quum 
non sufficiat inclusus aër vacuum replere, accersitur aqua et ascendit supra."--Porta's Magic, book 
xix. chap. 4.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 31 rp. 320
	†31 It was, I apprehend, the received doctrine that whatever knowledge the angelic nature 
is capable of it attains at once. See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol. Ima., q. 45, a. 2.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 32 rp. 321
	†32 The objection here anticipated has actually been made. It has been said that we 
cannot be sure that any quality always proceeds from the same cause. And in truth, though the 
axiom "like causes produce like effects", and vice versâ, seems to be inseparable from the idea of 
causation, yet the force of the objection remains. For the reference of sensible qualities to outward 
objects involves a subjective element. The same colour, as referred to a substance as the object in 
which it resides, is a different thing as it is a fixed colour, or prismatic, or epipolar, etc. They 
agree, it may be said, in the type of undulation; but viewed as properties of bodies, or with 
reference to operations on them, they are distinct. And if we could go further into the mechanism 
of sensation, we should probably recede further both from concrete bodies and from practice.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 33 rp. 321
	†33 This refers to the antithesis, almost fundamental in Peripatetic physics, of the celestial 
and the elementary. Heat, since the sun's rays are hot, cannot depend on elemental as 
contradistinguished from the celestial nature.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 34 rp. 322
	†34 [This is of course a blunder.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 35 Para. 1/3 rp. 322
	†35 Bacon here anticipates not merely the essential character of the most recent theory of 
heat, but also the kind of evidence by which it has been established. The proof that caloric does not 
exist,--in other words that heat is not the manifestation of a peculiar substance diffused through 
nature,--rests mainly on experiments of friction.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 35 Para. 2/3 rp. 322
	Mr. Joule and Professor Thomson ascribe the discovery of this proof chiefly to Sir 
Humphrey Davy (see Beddoes's Contributions to Physical and Medical Knowledge, p. 14): but 
though Davy's experiments guard against sources of error of which Bacon takes no notice, the 
merit of having perceived the true significance of the production of heat by friction belongs of 
right to Bacon.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 35 Para. 3/3 rp. 322
	It is curious that in the essay in which he opposes the doctrine of caloric, Davy 
endeavours to introduce a new error of the same kind, and to show that light really is a natura 
principialis, a peculiar substance which in combination with oxygen properly so called constitutes 
oxygen gas, which he accordingly calls phosoxygen.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 36 rp. 324
	†36 [This overlooks the familiar contrary case of water.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 1/10 rp. 326
	†37 The Inquisition into the form of heat suggests these remarks:--
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 2/10 rp. 326
	1st. A great part of it conduces in no way to the result. This may be said to be the natural 
consequence of the method of inquiry.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 3/10 rp. 326
	2nd. Heat (caloric) is confounded with the effects of chemical agencies, which are said 
"exequi opera caloris".
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 4/10 rp. 326
	3rd. A greater source of confusion is the complete absence of any recognition of the 
principle that all bodies tend to acquire the temperature of those about them, and that the 
difference ad tactum which makes one body feel hotter or colder than another depends not on its 
being hotter or colder, but on the different degree of facility which they have in communicating 
their own respective temperature. In consequence of this, it had always been taught that one class 
of bodies were in their own nature cold, another hot, and so on. All liquids were cold. Experiments 
with a thermometer would have shown that they were not; but these Bacon did not try,--an 
instance among others how far he was from rejecting all he had been taught.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 5/10 rp. 326
	Of which remarks we may observe that, of the "Instantiæ convenientes", 13 is an instance 
of the third, while from 22 to the end exemplify the second;--of the "Instantiæ in proximo", 14-19 
are to be referred to the third; from 27 to the end, to the second.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 6/10 rp. 326
	4th. Calidum and Frigidum seem to be considered distinct and not correlative qualities.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 7/10 rp. 326
	5th. The adoption of astrological fables about the hot and cold influence of the stars and 
planets [is to be remarked in the Tabula Graduum, 15 et seqq.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 8/10 rp. 326
	Then comes the result, that the natura calidi is a motus expansivus. This is seen [in air], 
"Optime cernitur in aëre qui per exiguum calorem se dilatat continuo et manifesto, ut per Inst. 38 
Tab. 3": that is, by the instance of a vitrum calendare, or air-thermometer. And this is beyond 
question a good instance. But then in the "exemplum exclusivæ", § 11, we read "Per dilatationem 
aëris in vitris calendariis et similibus, qui movetur localiter et expansive manifesto, neque tamen 
colligit manifestum augmentum caloris, rejice etiam motum localem aut expansivum secundum 
totum". How is this passage to be reconciled with the preceding? For if the example of the vitrum 
calendare proves anything, it proves a motus expansivus secundum totum; and if on account of our 
having no manifest evidence that the air waxes hot when it expands, the example does not prove 
this, why is it adduced? The source of this confusion I believe to be that, though Bacon saw reason 
to affirm expansion to be the essence of the hot, yet he was perplexed by examples of two kinds; 
(a) bodies which do not visibly expand when they are heated, e.g. red hot iron; (b) bodies which 
expand without becoming heated, e.g. compressed air when relieved from pressure. For the first 
difficulty, it might have occurred to him that the hot iron does expand, though not enough to be 
perceived (except by accurate measurement) to do so; and if he had followed the indication thus 
given, he might have been the discoverer of a general and most important law. The difficulty 
which the second class of phenomena creates ought to have prevented Bacon from assigning 
expansion as the forma calidi,--as being that which must always make a body hot, and without 
which it could not become so. For it would be too liberal an interpretation to say that the 
expressions "motus cohibitus et refrænatus", whereby the idea of expansion is qualified, refer to a 
condition essential in the case of elastic fluids,--namely that the expansion in becoming heated is 
due to an increased elasticity, and not to any decrease of external pressure. Even had the 
modification required by this class of cases been introduced, there still remains that of liquids 
whose temperature is below that of maximum density, which is altogether intractable. Of this 
phenomenon, however, it would be unreasonable to expect Bacon to have known anything. But 
setting it aside, if it were affirmed that Bacon, after having had a glimpse of the truth suggested by 
some obvious phenomena, had then recourse, as he himself expresses it, to certain "differentiæ 
inanes" in order to save the phenomena, I think it would be hard to dispute the truth of this 
censure.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 9/10 rp. 326
	Nevertheless, of the matters contained in the investigation, there are several of 
considerable interest, though, as has been said, they are not connected with the final result.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 37 Para. 10/10 rp. 327
	The relation between heat and mechanical action has recently become the subject of some 
very remarkable speculations, derived from the views suggested by S. Carnot in his Reflections sur 
la Puissance Motrice du Feu. Two views have been propounded. In one (that of S. Carnot himself), 
mechanical action is regarded as convertible with the transference from body to body of caloric. 
The other rejects the notion of caloric (the substance of heat) altogether. On this view mechanical 
action is convertible with the generation of heat, i.e. the raising of a given quantity of a given body 
from one given temperature to another. Both make use of the axiom "ex nihilo nihil"; and the 
conclusions thus obtained, especially in the second way of considering the subject, which I cannot 
doubt is the true one, are most remarkable, and the more interesting because they are, so to speak, 
the interpretation of a maxim whose truth is admitted à priori.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 38 rp. 327
	†38 [As to the meaning of this term see above, p. 25-26.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 39 rp. 327
	†39 Reference is made to Telesius's system of vision. "Lux donata est facultate sese 
effundendi multiplicandique et aërem propriâ specie afficiendi, itaque et oculos subeundi." . . 
Again, "lux quæ res quibus insunt [colores] permeat . . . ab ipsarum intingitur coloribus, et eas 
transvecta oculos subit."--De Rerum Nat. vii. 31. See also other passages of the same book. Bacon 
uses "imago" as equivalent to "species", the word used in the preceding quotation.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 40 rp. 328
	†40 [Orig. Garophylli.] Caryophyllea was a flower much cultivated in Holland in the 
sixteenth century; see Lemmius, De Miraculis (1581), p. 107. (The description seems more 
applicable to the tulip.) The flowers meant are pinks and carnations.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 41 rp. 328
	†41 I believe the word which Bacon here employs is at least very much less used than 
another of perhaps the same origin for which he has perhaps accidentally substituted it. "Feralis," 
we read in the Lexicon Mathematicum of Vitalis (1668), which appears to give a tolerably 
complete vocabulary of astrological words, "apud astronomos dicitur planeta, quando fuerit in loco 
ubi nullam cum reliquis familiaritatem habet: quod quidem maximum est detrimentum," etc.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 42 rp. 329
	†42 Bacon would perhaps have given as another illustration of what he has here said the 
beautiful whiteness of frosted silver, if he had been aware that it is in reality silver foam. It appears 
that when silver is in a state of fusion a very large quantity of oxygen is condensed on and within 
its surface, the whole of which escapes at the moment of solidification. This explanation of the 
appearance of granulated silver is due, I believe, to Gay Lussac.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 43 rp. 329
	†43 Compare Valerius Terminus, ch. xi.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 44 rp. 330
	†44 This mistake occurs also in the Historia Densi et Rari. According to Bacon, the 
density of mercury is to that of gold as thirty-nine is to forty, nearly; the real ratio being little more 
than as seven to ten. The way in which his experiments were made account for a large part of this 
error.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 45 rp. 330
	†45 Far tougher bubbles than the ordinary kind may be blown in water in which silk 
cocoons have been steeped. Some curious experiments on this subject are mentioned in Porter on 
Silk Manufactures (Lardner's Cyclop.).
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 46 rp. 331
	†46 This explanation of the effect of arming a magnet is wholly unsatisfactory. Before the 
Novum Organum was published, Galileo had shown that the armature acts by producing a more 
perfect contact. See the Dialogi dei Sistemi massimi, Giorn. 3a, p. 440. I quote from the new 
edition, Firenze, 1842.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 47 rp. 332
	†47 In the Phædrus, 266 B. [Noted by Dean Kitchin in his ed. of the Novum Organum.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 48 rp. 333
	†48 In many plants part of the stem grows underground, while in others part at least of the 
root is above the surface. The true distinction has relation to the functions of the two organs. There 
is nothing in the root analogous (except under special circumstances) to buds or nodes, and 
consequently no true ramification.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 49 rp. 334
	†49 This remark seems to have been suggested by a similar passage in Telesius, De 
Rerum Naturâ, vi. 18.:--"Masculo . . . magnus datus est calor, qui et membrum genitale foras 
propellat et sanguinem multum beneque omnem compactum conficiat, etc. Foeminæ autem . . . 
languens inditus est calor, qui neque genitale vas foras propellere nec è semine spiritum educere 
queat." The doctrine however of this passage was first taught by Galen, from whom Telesius 
derived it. See Galen, De Usu Partium, xiv. 6.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 50 rp. 334
	†50 De Anim. Incessu, i. 7.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 51 Para. 1/2 rp. 334
	†51 On the other hand, one is tempted to trace an analogy between the flower in plants 
and the skull in man and vertebrate animals in general: each occurring at the end of the axis of 
development, and each consisting of four segments--whorls or vertebræ. But by far the most 
remarkable analogy between plants and animals relates to the mode of development of their 
tissues, which, there is reason to believe, were all primarily formed from cells. The evidence in 
favour of this proposition is perhaps not yet quite complete.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 51 Para. 2/2 rp. 334
	It is curious that, after it had been established in the case of plants, Schleiden conceived 
that in this unity of original structure he had found a character peculiar to vegetable life, so that the 
analogy between plants and animals seemed to be impaired by the discovery.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 52 rp. 334
	†52 "Natura infinita est, sed qui symbola animadverterit omnia intelliget, licet non 
omnino," are the words of a great poet, who perhaps also is entitled to be called a great 
philosopher. They form the motto of one of the happiest illustrations of what Bacon meant by 
instantia conformis,--the Parthenogenesis of Professor Owen.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 53 rp. 335
	†53 A. von Humboldt has pointed out the conformity of the opposite shores of the 
Atlantic--the approximate correspondence between the projections on each side and the recesses 
on the other. But Bacon apparently compares not the opposite but the corresponding coasts of 
Africa and America. C. Concepcion would correspond to C. Negro; but the parallelism is not very 
close.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 54 Para. 1/2 rp. 335
	†54 The importance of the parallel here suggested was never understood until the present 
time, because the language of mathematics and of logic has hitherto not been such as to permit the 
relation between them to be recognised. Mr. Boole's Laws of Thought contains the first 
development of ideas of which the germ is to be found in Bacon and Leibnitz; to the latter of 
whom the fundamental principle that in logic a2 = a was known (v. Leibnitz, Philos. Works, by 
Erdmann, 1840, p. 130). It is not too much to say that Mr. Boole's treatment of the subject is 
worthy of these great names.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 54 Para. 2/2 rp. 335
	Other calculuses of inference (using the word in its widest sense), besides the 
mathematical and the logical, yet perhaps remain to be developed; but this is a subject on which it 
is impossible here to enter.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 55 rp. 336
	†55 See Owen, On the Nature of Limbs, p. 54.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 56 rp. 336
	†56 Ennius, quoted by Cicero.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 57 rp. 337
	†57 I. § 109.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 58 rp. 337
	†58 II. § 28.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 59 rp. 338
	†59 It is curious that Bacon should not have remarked that all the qualities here 
mentioned belong to felt as well as to paper.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 60 rp. 339
	†60 Although precise directions for making ether were given by Valerius Cordus in 1544, 
yet it is said to have remained unnoticed until it was rediscovered in the eighteenth century. 
Bacon's want of acquaintance with it, implied in this and other passages, is therefore not 
surprising.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 61 Para. 1/2 rp. 340
	†61 The regular use of artificial heat in greenhouses and conservatories was not known in 
Bacon's time. In the Maison Champêtre, an encyclopædia of gardening and agriculture published 
in 1607, nothing is said of it; nor is there anything on the subject in the writings of Porta, though in 
his Nat. Mag. he has spoken of various modes of accelerating the growth of fruits and flowers. In 
the Sylva Sylvarum (412), however, Bacon speaks of housing hot-country plants to save them, 
and, in the Essay on Gardens, of stoving myrtles. The idea of what are now called greenhouses 
was introduced into England from Holland about the time of the Revolution. The orangery at 
Heidelberg, formed, I believe, about the middle of the seventeenth century, is said to be the earliest 
conservatory on record.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 61 Para. 2/2 rp. 340
	It is related that Albertus Magnus, entertaining the emperor at Cologne during the winter, 
selected for the place of entertainment the garden of his monastery. Everything was covered with 
snow, and the guests were much inclined to be discontented; but when the feast began, the snow 
cleared away; the trees put forth, first leaves, then blossoms, then fruit; and the climate became 
that of summer. This glorious summer, which had thus abruptly succeeded to the winter of their 
discontent, lasted only till the conclusion of the feast, when everything resumed its former aspect. 
It would be a fanciful explanation, and I know not whether it has ever been suggested, to say that 
Albertus Magnus really entertained the emperor in a conservatory, and only led his guests through 
the garden. See, for the story, Grimm's Deutsche Sagen.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 62 rp. 340
	†62 Meteorologia, i. 14.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 63 rp. 341
	†63 It is mentioned in the life of Fracastorius, that when dying of apoplexy, and 
speechless, he made signs for the application of a cucurbita (or cupping-vessel) to his head, 
remembering the remarkable cure which he had effected in the case of a nun at Verona. It is 
scarcely necessary to remark that "dry cupping," as it is called, acts simply by partially removing 
the pressure of the atmosphere: the heat applied to the vessel has no other effect than that of 
rarefying the air it contains.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 64 rp. 341
	†64 Bacon's rejection of the essential heterogeneity of the three species of heat is 
apparently taken from Telesius, De Rerum Nat. vi. 20. Telesius remarks, as Bacon does, that eggs 
may be hatched, and insects apparently dead restored to life, by means of artificial heat.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 65 rp. 342
	†65 In Gilbert's philosophy, the earth's magnetic action is not distinguished from gravity. 
See De Mundo, ii. c. 3. Again, that the magnetic action of the earth or of a magnet is confined to a 
definite orb appears from a variety of passages. See De Magnete, ii. c. 7., and the definitions 
prefixed to this work. Gilbert distinguished between the "orb of virtue", which includes the whole 
space through which any magnetic action extends, and the "orb of coition", which is "totum illud 
spatium per quod minimum magneticum per magnetem movetur". He asserts that the orb of the 
magnetic virtue extends to the moon, and ascribes the moon's inequalities to the effects it produces 
(De Mundo, ii. c. 19). In the preceding chapter he remarks, "Luna magnetice alligatur terræ, quia 
facies ejus semper versus terram".
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 66 rp. 343
	†66 The doctrine of this passage seems to be taken from Telesius, De Rerum Naturâ, vii. 
c. 31.:--"Sensus ipse primo illam [lucem] et per se visilem colores siquidem visiles, at secundo a 
luce loco et lucis omnino opera visiles declarat."
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 67 rp. 343
	†67 [Orig. Instantias Crucis.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 68 rp. 343
	†68 [I.e. "crosses."]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 69 rp. 343
	†69 Compare the De Fluxu et Refluxu Maris. I have not been able to find this statement 
in Acosta, who speaks of the synchronism of the tides on the opposite sides of South America, as 
shown by the meeting of the tidal waves in the Straits of Magellan. (iii. 14.)
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 70 rp. 344
	†70 It is scarcely necessary to remark that wherever soundings are possible, tidal 
phenomena are derivative, and give no direct information as to the form the ocean would assume if 
the hypothesis of the equilibrium theory represented the reality.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 71 rp. 345
	†71 Nothing shows better than an instance of this kind, the impossibility of reducing 
philosophical reasoning to a uniform method of exclusion. How could the analogical argument in 
the text be stated in accordance with what Bacon seems to recognise as the only true form of 
induction,--that, namely, which proceeds by exclusion? The argument depends on a wholly non-
logical element, the conviction of the unity and harmony of nature.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 72 rp. 345
	†72 This passage does the author little credit. He does not seem to have perceived that the 
resolution of the apparent motion into other simpler motions was an essentially necessary step 
before the phenomena could be grouped together in any general law. The transition from the 
apparent motion to the real motions could never have been made unless the former had been 
resolved in the manner which Bacon here condemns. From the concluding remark no astronomer 
would have dissented, "talem esse motum ad sensum, qualem diximus". About this there can be no 
question; but the whole passage shows how little Bacon understood the scope and the value of the 
astronomy of his own time.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 73 Para. 1/2 rp. 346
	†73 Nothing can be more ingenious than the instantia crucis here proposed. A series of 
observations were made by Dr. Whewell and Mr. Airy to determine the effect on the time of 
vibration of a pendulum, produced by carrying it to the bottom of a mine; but, probably from the 
effect of local attractions, the results were scarcely as satisfactory as might have been expected. In 
the autumn of 1854, Mr. Airy instituted similar experiments in the Harton Colliery. They appear 
likely to afford more satisfactory results than the older series made at Dolcoath.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 73 Para. 2/2 rp. 346
	Voltaire cites the passage in the text in support of his remark that "le plus grand service, 
peut-être, que F. Bacon ait rendu à la philosophie a été de deviner l'attraction". But in reality the 
notion of attraction in one form or other (e.g. the attraction of the sea by the moon) sprang up in 
the infancy of physical speculation; and it cannot be affirmed that Bacon's ideas on the subject 
were as clear as those of his predecessor William Gilbert. (See note on De Aug. ii. 13) By an error 
similar to Voltaire's, some of Dante's commentators have claimed for him the credit of being the 
first to indicate the true cause of the tides. The passage on which this claim is founded is in the 
Paradiso, xvi. 82.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 74 rp. 346
	†74 See, for these two remarks, the twelfth chapter of the third book of Gilbert's treatise 
De Magnete. It is illustrated by a curious woodcut representing the smith forging a bar of iron, and 
holding it, as he does so, in the plane of the meridian.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 75 rp. 347
	†75 Orig. Terrella. This is a word used by Gilbert to denote a spherical magnet. One of 
the fundamental ideas of his philosophy was that the earth was a great magnet; and a magnet of the 
same form was therefore called a "little earth," or terrella. See, for instance, his treatise De 
Magnete, ii. cc. 7, 8.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 76 rp. 347
	†76 See Gilbert's De Mundo, ii. c. 13 et seqq. [Bacon here appears to lean to the view that 
the moon is a vapour, see also p. 704.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 77 rp. 347
	†77 The comparison of the brightness of the moon in the daytime with that of a cloud was 
ingeniously applied by Bouguer to determine the ratio of the moon's light to the sun's.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 78 rp. 347
	†78 [It is hardly necessary to remark that it is not the air but the glass that causes the 
reflection.--Ed.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 79 rp. 348
	†79 See Fracastorius, De Sympathiâ et Antipathiâ, c. 4. The notion that the air concurred 
in producing the continued motion of projectiles is found in the Timæus, p. 80. Plato has been 
speaking of respiration, of which his theory is, that the expiration of air through the nostrils and 
mouth pushes the contiguous external air from its place, which disturbs that near it, and so on until 
a circle is formed, whereby, by antiperistasis, air is forced in through the flesh, to fill up the cavity 
of the chest--a circulation of air through the body, in short. On the same principle he would have 
explained a variety of other phenomena--the action of cupping instruments, swallowing, the 
motion of projectiles, etc., etc. All these, however, after suggesting the explanation, he leaves 
unexplained. But Plutarch, Quæst. Platon. x. (p. 177. of Reiske's Plutarch) developes a similar 
explanation in each case. This explanation, however, is not Plato's but Plutarch's, though it is 
probably what Plato would himself have said.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 80 rp. 349
	†80 It is well known that the expansive force of the vapour of mercury at high 
temperatures is enormous.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 81 rp. 349
	†81 This experiment is mentioned as actually tried in Sylva Sylvarum, 31.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 82 rp. 350
	†82 The fundamental idea of Telesius's philosophy is, that heat and cold are the great 
constituent principles of the universe, and that the antithesis between them corresponds to that 
which he recognises between the sun and the earth:--"Omnino calidus, tenuis, candidus, 
mobilisque est Sol; Terra contra frigida, crassa, immobilis, tenebricosaque . . . unum Sol in terram 
emittens calorem ejus naturam facultatesque et conditiones ex eâ deturbat omnes, suasque ei indit; 
et eodem ferme modo quo Sol terram, etiam calor quivis, vel qui e commotis contritisque enascitur 
rebus, quæ corripit exuperatque immutare videtur; frigus scilicet ex iis, ejusque facultates 
conditionesque omnes, crassitiem, obscuritatem, immobilitatem, deturbare, et se ipsum iis, 
propriasque facultates conditionesque omnes, tenuitatem, albedinem et mobilitatem, indere . . . . 
videtur."--De Rerum Naturâ, i. c. I.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 83 rp. 351
	†83 Compare Aph. xiii. § 28. It would appear from the passage in the text that Bacon had 
not even seen one of the newly invented microscopes.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 84 rp. 351
	†84 Leibnitz goes as far as to say, "La matière arrangée par une sagesse divine doti être 
essentiellement organisée partout; . . . il y a machine dans les parties de la machine naturelle à 
l'infini".--Sur le Principe de Vie, p. 431 of Erdmann's edition.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 85 rp. 351
	†85 Democritus maintained that the atom was wholly incognisable by the senses. Thus 
Sextus Empiricus mentions him along with Plato as having held the doctrine. {mona ta noeta 
alethe einai}; the reason in the case of Democritus being that his atoms, which alone he recognised 
as realities, possessed {pases aisthetes poiotetos eremon physin}.--Sext. Emp. Advers. Logicos, ii. 
§ 6.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 86 rp. 352
	†86 Galileo often mentions the attempt which many of the Peripaticians made to set aside 
all arguments founded on his discoveries with the telescope, by saying that they were mere optical 
delusions. J. C. La Galla, in his dissertation De Phænominis in Orbe Lunæ, has a section entitled 
"De Telescopii Veritate", in which, though an Aristotelian, he has nevertheless admitted that this 
objection is untenable.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 87 rp. 352
	†87 Compare this with the passage in the Descriptio Globi Intellectualis (c. v.) where 
Bacon speaks of Galileo's invention and discoveries (the first fruits of which had just been 
announced) in a strain of more sanguine expectation. From that passage, written eight years before, 
we may learn (I think) why it was that Bacon had now begun to doubt how far these observations 
could be trusted. Believing as he did that all the received theories of the heavens were full of error, 
as soon as he heard that by means of the telescope men could really see so much further into the 
heavens than before, he was prepared to hear of a great number of new and unexpected 
phenomena; and his only fear was that the observers, instead of following out their observations 
patiently and carefully, would begin to form new theories. But now that nine years had passed 
since the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, the spots in the sun, etc., and no new discovery of 
importance had been announced, he wondered how it could be that men seeing so much further 
should be able to see so little more than they did, and began to suspect that it was owing to some 
defect either in the instrument or in the methods of observation.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 88 rp. 354
	†88 It is worth remarking that Bacon here asserts as absolutely certain a maxim which is 
assuredly no result of experience. The same doctrine is as distinctly though not so emphatically 
asserted by Telesius, I. c. 5.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 89 rp. 356
	†89 An excellent instance of the "deductio nonsensibilis ad sensibile" [in the second kind] 
occurs in the experiments recently made by Messrs. Hopkins and Joule for determining the 
melting-point of substances subjected to great pressure. The substance acted on is enclosed in a 
tube out of reach and sight. But a bit of magnetized steel has previously been introduced into it, 
and is supported by it as long as it remains solid. A magnetic needle is placed beside the apparatus, 
a certain amount of deviation being, of course, produced by the steel within the tube. The moment 
the temperature reaches the melting-point, the steel sinks; and its doing so is indicated by the 
motion of the needle.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 90 rp. 357
	†90 The epithet perfecta is generally given to those animals which cannot result from 
putrefaction. Caesalpinus, in the Quaestiones Peripat. v. 1., maintains that all animals may result 
from putrefaction, and that this was the doctrine of Aristotle. The same opinion had, I believe, 
been advanced by Averroës. That mice may be produced by equivocal generation is asserted, as a 
matter not admitting of dispute, by Cardan, De Rerum Varietate. Caesalpinus refers to the same 
instance, but less confidently than Cardan. It is worth remarking that Aristotle, though he speaks of 
the great fecundity of mice, and even of their being impregnated by licking salt, does not mention 
the possibility of their being produced by putrefaction. (De Hist. Animal. vi. 37; Problem. x 64.) 
Paracelsus, De Rerum Generatione, affirms that all animals produced from putrefaction are more 
or less venomous. Telesius's opinion is that the more perfect animals cannot result from 
putrefaction, because the condition of temperature necessary to their production cannot be fulfilled 
except by means of animal heat.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 91 rp. 357
	†91 Wine made of sour grapes (Pliny, xiv. 18, and elsewhere).
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 92 rp. 358
	†92 Du Bois Reymond's Researches in Animal Electricity give a good example of this. 
He constructed what may be called an electrical model of a muscle, and succeeded in obtaining an 
illustration not only of his fundamental result, namely, that any transverse section is negative with 
respect to any longitudinal one, but also of the more complicated relations between two different 
portions of the same section.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 93 rp. 358
	†93 Dr. Woolaston's method for obtaining wires of extreme fineness was perhaps 
suggested by the circumstance mentioned in the text. He enclosed a gold wire in a cylinder of 
silver, drew them out together, and then dissolved away the silver by means of warm nitrous acid.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 94 rp. 360
	†94 Bacon here speaks in accordance with the medical theory in which the brain is the 
origin and seat of the rheum, which descends from thence and produces disease in other organs--a 
theory preserved in the word catarrh. Certain purgatives were supposed to draw the rheum down.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 95 rp. 360
	†95 It is worth remarking that Galileo speaks contemptuously of the notion that the moon 
exerts any influence on the tides. His strong wish to explain everything mechanically led him in 
this instance wrong, as a similar wish has led many others. It arose, not unnaturally, from a 
reaction against the unsatisfactory explanations which the schoolmen were in the habit of deducing 
from the specific or occult properties of bodies. Even Leibnitz, in his controversy with Clarke, 
shows a tendency towards an exclusive preference of a mechanical system of physics, though in 
other parts of his writings he had spoken favourably of the doctrine of attraction, and though his 
whole philosophy ought, one would think, to have made him indifferent to the point in dispute. In 
a system of pre-established harmony, action by contact is as merely apparent as action at a 
distance.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 96 rp. 360
	†96 Strabo, xvi. p. 472. Pliny, ii. § 109.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 97 rp. 360
	†97 To the same purpose Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 99:--
"As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope," etc.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 98 rp. 361
	†98 That is, the eye being at the apex of the visual cone.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 99 rp. 361
	†99 This explanation is wholly unsatisfactory. The principle upon which the true 
explanation depends, namely the pressure of the atmosphere, was, it seems tolerably certain, first 
suggested by Torricelli. If the experiment were performed in vacuo, no water would enter the egg, 
unless the egg were plunged to a considerable depth into the water, or unless the vacuum within it 
were more perfect than could be produced in the manner described.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 100 Para. 1/2 rp. 362
	†100 This is perhaps the most remarkable of Bacon's experiments; and it is singular that it 
was so little spoken of by subsequent writers. Nearly fifty years after the publication of the Novum 
Organum, an account of a similar experiment was published by Megalotti, who was secretary of 
the Accademia del Cimento at Florence; and it has since been familiarly known as the Florentine 
experiment. I quote his account of it. "Facemmo lavorar di getto una grande ma sottil palla 
d'argento, e quella ripiena d'acqua raffreddata col ghiaccio serramo con saldissime vite. Di poi 
cominciammo a martellarla leggiermente per ogni verso, onde ammaccato l'argento (il quale per la 
sua crudezza non comporta d'assottigliarsi e distendersi come farebbe l'oro raffinato, o il piombo, o 
altro metallo pi· dolce) veniva a ristrignersi, e scemare la sua interna capacità, senza che l'acqua 
patisse una minima compressione, poichè ad ogni colpo si videa trasudare per tutti i pori del 
metallo a guisa d'argento vivo il quale da alcuna pelle premuto minutamente sprizzasse."--Saggi di 
naturali Esperienze fatte nell' Accademia del Cimento, p. 204. Firenze, 1667. The writer goes on to 
remark that the absolute incompressibility of water is not proved by this experiment, but merely 
that it is not to be compressed in the manner described. But the experiment is on other grounds 
inconclusive.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 100 Para. 2/2 rp. 362
	It is to be remarked that Leibnitz, Nouveaux Essais, in mentioning the Florentine 
experiment, says that the globe was of gold (p. 229, Erdmann), whereas the Florentine 
academicians expressly say why they preferred silver to either gold or lead.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 101 rp. 362
	†101 Galileo had shown, before the year 1592, that the resistance of the air being set 
aside, all bodies fall with equal velocity. He left Pisa in that year in consequence of the disputes 
which were occasioned by this refutation of the Aristotelian doctrine, that the velocity is as the 
weight.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 102 rp. 363
	†102 [It will be observed that, with unlucky ingenuity, Bacon here lets the truth slip from 
his hands after he has glimpsed it. The Bohn editor notes that Dominic Cassini let it slip in the 
same way.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 103 rp. 363
	†103 I do not know how to understand this passage without attributing to Bacon a 
confusion of ideas which seems hardly credible. For surely the very thing which he supposes 
would happen if there were a perceptible interval between the veritas and the visus, that is to say, 
between the time when a star (for instance) is at a given point and the time when we see it there,--
in other words, if the image took any time in coming to the eye,--this very thing does actually 
happen as often as the star is hidden by a cloud or dimmed by a vapour: the species, to use his own 
word, are intercepted or confused. If indeed, the force of the rays were diminished,--and this I 
suppose would be one consequence of diminished velocity,--the thing would happen more 
frequently, because there would be more obstructions which they could not overcome: they would 
be intercepted or confused by media which they now pass through. But the force being the same, 
and the stream continuous, the time of passage could make no difference in this respect. In another 
respect, namely, the facility of observation, it would make a very great difference; and it is 
remarked by Brinkley that, if the velocity of light had been much less than it is, astronomy would 
have been all but an impossible science. But that is another matter.--J. S.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 104 rp. 364
	†104 Of the phenomena which he here enumerates Bacon undoubtedly gives the right 
explanation, though in the case of vibrating strings his explanation is not altogether complete. The 
distinct or quasi-distinct images to which he refers correspond to limiting positions of the vibrating 
string.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 105 rp. 364
	†105 This account of Galileo's theory of the tides is inaccurate. In this theory the tides are 
caused by the varying velocity of different points of the earth's surface, arising from the 
composition of the earth's two motions, namely that about its axis, and that in its orbit. Bacon does 
not seem to have perceived that both these motions are essential to the explanation. That the earth's 
being in motion might be the cause of the tides, had been suggested before the time of Galileo by 
Cæsalpinus in the Quæstiones Peripateticæ, iii. 5. It is odd that Patricius, in giving an account of 
all the theories which had in his time been devised to explain the cause of the tides (see his 
Pancosmia, I. 28.), does not mention Caesalpinus's, though it was published some years before his 
own work. Galileo perhaps alludes to Caesalpinus in his letter to Cardinal Orsino, dated 8th 
January, 1616. See, for remarks on Caesalpinus's doctrine, the Problemata Marina of Casmann, 
published in 1596. Casmann's own theory is that of expansion.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 106 rp. 365
	†106 Orig. Motus Antitypiae. This term was first used by Aristotle.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 107 rp. 367
	†107 Pliny, xxxvii. 9. Also Seneca, Natural Questions. Though this account of the origin 
of crystals is of course erroneous, yet there is a class of crystals which have been shown to occupy 
the volume which their water of crystallisation would in the state of ice; so that their other 
constituents may in some sort be said to take up no space. This curious analogy with ice was 
proved by Playfair and Joule in a very considerable number of cases. See Phil. Mag., Dec. 1845.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 108 rp. 368
	†108 For the definition we may refer to the Margarita Philosophiae,  xi. 3. It is founded 
on a passage in the De Gen. et Corr. ii. 2. Gilbert's censure on it is to be found in his posthumous 
work De Mundo nostro sublunari Philosophia nova, which was published by Gruter in 1651, long 
after the death of Bacon. It seems, however, as Gruter remarks, that the work, which he suggests 
may have been written before the treatise De Magnete, published in 1600, had been read in 
manuscript by "viri magni et famae celeberrimae". "Illi perspicace in Physicis praesertim ingenio 
haud poenitendae in evolvendo operae testimonium dederunt, quod integrum excussisse 
censeantur, et aliqua a vulgaribus opiniontibus abhorrentia calculo suo comprobata hinc sparsim 
citent"; in which I do not doubt that Gruter refers to Bacon. Bacon's quotation seems to have been 
made from imperfect memory, as the words of the original are:--"quid illud ostendit aut quae illa 
differentia ab effectu tantum in quibusdam corporibus, congregans homogenea et disgregans 
heterogenea? ac si diceres hominem animal esse carduos et sentes evellens, et fruges serens, cum 
istud sit agricolae studium".--De Mundo, etc., i. c. 26.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 109 rp. 371
	†109 Gilbert, De Magnete, ii. c. 4.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 110 Para. 1/3 rp. 371
	†110 I have not been able to find any passage in Paracelsus which altogether corresponds 
to this remark; and in his Modus Pharmacandi the process of digestion is described without 
reference to the Archeus; nor is it said that each member "latet in pane vel cibo." "Hoc scimus, 
quod cujusque membri nutrimentum latitet in pane, carne, et in aliis similiter." "Quot vero modis 
et quibus, necnon quâ ratione membris corporis nutrimentum dividatur, nos ignoramus; hoc tant·m 
scimus, rem ita se habere ut diximus."--De Mod. Pharm. v. p. 233. (I use the edition of 1603.)
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 110 Para. 2/3 rp. 371
	Bacon has, however, correctly stated the general doctrine that alimentation is by 
separation; and again Paracelsus affirms that "officium vero Archei est in microcosmo purum ab 
impuro separare".--De Morbis Tartareis, iii. 195. The truth is that Paracelsus's views are so often 
repeated and varied in the course of his writings, that it is difficult to know how far his opinions 
are represented by any particular passage.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 110 Para. 3/3 rp. 371
	It is well to remark that, to a certain extent, the theory here so decidedly condemned has, 
by the recent progress of organic chemistry, been shown to be true. Nothing seems better 
established than that the nitrogenised components of animal bodies are derived from the 
corresponding elements of their food. With respect to fat, it is, I believe, a prevailing opinion at 
present, that animals have the power of converting into it the starch or sugar of their food; and the 
production of butyric acid by fermentation has been regarded as at least an illustration of the 
transformation. One of the highest authorities on such a subject, however, I mean M. Boussingault, 
was, at least a few years ago, of a different opinion. He regarded animal fat as the representative of 
the fatty matters contained in the food.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 111 Para. 1/4 rp. 372
	†111 The theory here proposed is nearly equivalent to the most recent views on the same 
subject, as the following passage will sufficiently show.--It is obvious that both statements, 
however much of truth they may involve, are indefinite and unsatisfactory. It is not said whether 
the new properties engendered depend upon new types of motion or new arrangements, though the 
latter is probably Liebig's opinion.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 111 Para. 2/4 rp. 372
	"All the phenomena of fermentation, when taken together, establish the correctness of the 
principle long since recognised by Laplace and Berthollet, namely, that an atom or molecule, put 
in motion by any power whatever, may communicate its own motion to another atom in contact 
with it.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 111 Para. 3/4 rp. 372
	"This is a dynamical law of the most general application, manifested everywhere when 
the resistance or force opposing the motion, such as the vital principle, the force of affinity, 
electricity, cohesion, etc., is not sufficiently powerful to arrest the motion imparted.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 111 Para. 4/4 rp. 372
	"This law has only recently been recognised as a cause of the alterations in forms and 
properties which occur in our chemical combinations; and its establishment is the greatest and 
most enduring acquisition which chemical science has derived from the study of fermentation."--
Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, p. 209.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 112 rp. 373
	†112 The most striking instance of this kind of harmony is the circumstance that all the 
movements of the solar system are in the same general direction, viz., from west to east. Laplace 
has attempted to calculate the probability that this uniformity is the result of a common cause 
determining the direction of their movements; but these numerical estimations of the probability of 
the truth of any induction are, on several accounts, altogether unsatisfactory.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 113 rp. 373
	†113 This passage shows that Bacon was not aware that the poles are not fixed (collocati) 
anywhere; in other words, that he was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes;--an 
additional proof how little of his attention had been given to mathematical physics.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 114 rp. 374
	†114 This passage is wholly in accordance with the Peripatetic system of physics. But the 
modifications which Bacon goes on to enumerate, to which, as he conceives, the eternal circular 
motions of the heavenly bodies may be subject, are sufficient to destroy the whole à priori 
argument in favour of such a system of astronomy as that which we find in the twelfth book of the 
Metaphysics. It has not been sufficiently observed that the Ptolemaic system is no less at variance 
with the Peripatetic philosophy than the heliocentrical. The attempts of Turrianus and Fracastorius 
to construct what may be called an orthodox system of astronomy--that is one in which all the 
motions should take place in circles of which the earth is the centre--was suggested chiefly, as we 
learn from the Homocentrica of the latter, by the wish to reconcile astronomy and philosophy. It 
had no scientific value, since it left all the phenomena of variations of parallax and apparent 
diameter unexplained, or, at any rate, gave an explanation of them which no astronomer would 
accept. It was nevertheless favourably received by the systematic Peripaticians. See, for instance, 
Flaminius, De prima Philosoph. Paraph. p. 119. (I quote the Basle edition of 1557.)
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 115 rp. 375
	†115 I believe the sense is that unless we restrict ourselves to circular motion, that is 
unless we reject the sixth and seventh species of variation, it will not be necessary for us to 
suppose the poles themselves to be movable: in other words, that the phenomena of which we 
could by this hypothesis give an account may be adequately represented without it by means of 
spirals.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 116 rp. 375
	†116 The name of trepidation was given by the Alphonsine astronomers to a motion by 
which they imagined the starry heaven to be affected, and in virtue of which its equinoxes 
described small circles of nine degrees radius about those of the ninth or next superior orb. To 
account for this motion they introduced a tenth orb. The phenomenon, however, thus accounted for 
was altogether imaginary, although it is true that the length of the tropical year, by supposed 
variations of which the idea of trepidation was suggested, is not rigorously constant. It may be 
questioned whether Bacon's hesitation to accept the astronomical motion of trepidation had any 
better foundation than his doubts whether the proper motions of the planetary orbs were anything 
more than "res confictae et suppositae". The question of the existence or non-existence of 
trepidation could only be decided by a person conversant with the details of the received system of 
astronomy.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 117 rp. 376
	†117 "Vacuum permistum," {kenon achoriston}, is vacuum diffused through the 
interstices of any portion of matter. By "vacuum coacervatum," {kenon kechorismenon}, is meant 
clear empty space. See, for this distinction, Aristotle, Phys. iv. 7. Hero of Alexandria, whom 
Bacon mentions more than once, approves of those who admit the former kind of vacuum and 
reject the latter. See the Introduction to his Spiritalia. [It is perhaps worth observing that in the 
fable entitled: "Cupido sive Atomus (De Sap. Vet. xvii.), where the theory of a vacuum is 
mentioned, this distinction was not introduced till Bacon revised the work in his later years. The 
passage which stands thus in the original edition (1609)--"Quisquis autem atomum ponit et 
vacuum, necessario virtutem atomi ad distans introducit"--is altered, in the edition published by 
Rawley after Bacon's death, to "Quisquis autem atomum asserit atque vacuum (licet istud vacuum 
intermistum ponat, non segregatum) necessario," etc.--J. S.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 118 Para. 1/2 rp. 376
	†118 "Ex vacuo bis millies" is to be rendered "two thousand times as much of vacuity". 
Bacon thought spirit of wine a hundred times denser than its own vapour, and gold twenty-one 
times denser than spirit of wine. In the Historia Densi et Rari, he remarks that air is at least a 
hundred-fold rarer than water; and from the table there given it appears that the specific density of 
gold is to that of water as 1,000 to 56, nearly. Hence he must have estimated the density of gold at 
1900-fold that of air. Now, if we take the same weight of air and of gold; it is clear that, neglecting 
the space occupied by the solid matter, supposed equally dense, of each, the ratio of their densities 
is the same as that of the "vacua permista" which they respectively contain, and that if we take the 
solid matter into account the "ex vacuo" in the case of air must bear a larger ratio than that of the 
densities to the "ex vacuo" of gold, so that we may take it in round numbers to be as two thousand 
to one, as in the text.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 118 Para. 2/2 rp. 376
	The passage is important as showing that Bacon, notwithstanding his frequent mention of 
Democritus, did not adopt the atomic philosophy, though he did not absolutely reject the physical 
part of it.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 119 rp. 378
	†119 According to Beckmann, the first distinct mention of the diving-bell, at least in 
modern times, is to be found in Fainsius, as quoted by Schott. Fainsius gives an account of some 
Greeks who exhibited a diving-bell at Toledo, before Charles the Fifth and his court, in 1538. 
[Bacon's words in the text specify in addition to the diving-bell a submarine boat, such as that 
exhibited by Drebbel in 1620. See below an allusion to the same subject in the New Atlantis, and 
note to the De Augmentis, v. 2.--ED.]
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 120 rp. 381
	†120 This wonderful tree is described in Johnston's Dendrographia, published at 
Frankfort in 1669. See book the tenth, c. 4. One of the authorities he refers to is Cardan (De variet. 
rerum), from whom not improbably Bacon derived the story. The tree is said to be found in the 
island of Ferro. Cardan, with more than usual caution, remarks, at the close of the account he gives 
of it: "Sed postquam hoc tot scriptores affirmant, fieri potest ut tale aliquid contingat, sed modus 
nondum perspectus est".--De rerum variet.  vi. c. 22. Compare Oviedo in Ramusio, iii. 71. a.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 121 rp. 381
	†121 I have not been able to find this in Paracelsus. It seems, however, to accord with his 
theory of dew,--namely that it is an exudation from the sun and stars; the suppression of which 
would lead to the formation of additional suns.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 122 rp. 382
	†122 Orig. Balnei Mariae. This is properly "balneum maris;" that is, a mode of 
communicating heat to any substance by putting it into a vessel which is placed in another 
containing water. The latter being put on the fire, the former and its contents become gradually and 
moderately heated. The reason of the name is obvious. From "balneum maris" the French made by 
a kind of translation (the final s not being sounded) "bain marie;" and the form in the text is, I 
think, merely a retranslation of the French phrase, the meaning of the second word being mistaken. 
Balneum Mariae is however, I believe, a common phrase with old writers on chemistry.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 123 rp. 383
	†123 Telesius's doctrine of the formation of the embryo is essentially the same as Galen's, 
namely that a system of arteries, etc., must be first of all formed in the germ, and that these, by 
applying themselves to corresponding parts on the surface of the matrix, determine the channels 
through which nourishment is supplied, and therefore (mediately) the development of the different 
members of the foetus. But it does not seem that he would have admitted that the smoothness of 
the shells of eggs was an objection to his theory. At any rate, he illustrates it by reference to the 
appearances presented by an egg opened during incubation. De rerum naturâ,  vi. c. 4 and 40.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 124 rp. 383
	†124 This triad is the fundamental point of Paracelsus's chemical and medical philosophy. 
See his works throughout, and particularly the tract De tribus primis essentiis, contained in the 
third book of his philosophical works.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 125 rp. 384
	†125 By "menstrua" are meant the substances out of which any species of mineral is 
generated, or, in other words, the causa materialis of its existence. See, on the generation of metals 
and other minerals, the fourth and fifth books of Agricola's work De ortu et causis fossilium. He 
gives an account of the opinions of Aristotle, Theophrastus, etc. In modern chemistry the word 
menstruum is nearly equivalent to solvent. By the school of Paracelsus the word is used so vaguely 
that it is difficult to determine what idea they attached to it, or how they derived their sense of the 
word from its original signification. When the word is used as in the text, the metaphor seems to 
be taken from the Aristotelian theory of generation, in which {kata ten proten hylen estin he ton 
katamenion physis}.
Bacon: NVOR Bk. 2 Foot. 126 rp. 384
	†126 Orig. Ordo Folitanorum. Bacon doubtless refers to the order of Feüillans. Jean de la 
Barrière, after holding the Cistercian abbey of Feüillans in commendam for eleven years, 
renounced the world in 1573, and in the course of a few years introduced a most austere rule of life 
into the abbey of which he was the head. His monks knelt on the floor during their refections, and 
some of them were in the habit of drinking out of skulls. They abstained from eggs, fish, butter, 
oil, and even salt, and confined themselves to pottage made of herbs boiled in water, and bread so 
coarse and black that beasts refused to eat of it. After a while they gave up wine also. Clement 
VIII. permitted the society to draw up constitutions for the establishment of their rule. By these the 
excessive rigour of their way of life was checked, which was done in obedience to the Pope, and in 
consequence of the deaths of fourteen monks in a single week at Feüillans. These constitutions 
were ratified in 1595. Assuming, of which there seems no doubt, that the Folitani of Bacon are the 
Feüillans, I may remark that the latinised form of Feüillans used is Fuliensis, as an adjective; the 
proper style of the society being "Congregatio Cistertiomonastica B. Mariae Fuliensis". I have not 
seen the work of Morotius to which Helyot, from whom the preceding account is taken, refers, but 
in that of C. Henrique, also mentioned by Helyot, I do not find any authority for Folitani. It is 
probable that Bacon's chief information on the subject was gathered orally during his residence in 
France, before the Feüillans had ceased from their first love. The expression "ordo . . . fere 
evanuit" must be taken to mean that the severe rule that they had at first was given up. See Helyot, 
Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, ivme partie, c. 38. Spondanus, An. 1586, iv. For some particulars of 
the early history of the Abbey of Feüillans, and especially for the will of Jean de la Barrière, see 
Voyage Littéraire de deux Bénédictins, ii. p. 16.