firing of a cannon, for example, the succession of events during the short interval between the application of the match, and the explosion of the ball, constitute a latent process of a very remarkable and complicated nature, which, however, we can now trace with some degree of accuracy. In mechanical operations we can often follow this process more completely. When motion is communicated from any body to another, it is distributed through all the parts of that other, by a law quite beyond the reach of sense to perceive directly, but yet subject to investigation, and determined by a principle which, though late in being discovered, is now perfectly recognised. The applications of this mechanical principle are perhaps the instances in which a latent, and indeed a very recondite process has been most completely analysed." The allusion here is to the laws which regulate percussion, collision, and the communication of motion in bodies.

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What Bacon terms the latent schematism, or structure of bodies, is that unseen shape and arrangement of their parts on which, it is obvious, so many of their properties must depend. The internal structure of plants, and the constitution of crystals, are instances; an inquiry into these is an inquiry into what is here quaintly termed the latent schematism; as also such an inquiry into electricity, gravitation, magnetism, etc., as would be directed towards the attempt to explain these facts, by any peculiar structure of bodies, or any arrangement of the particles of matter. The inquiry," says Bacon," and discovery of the concealed structure in bodies, is as much a new thing as the discovery of the latent process, and form; for men have hitherto trodden only in the outer courts of nature; and are not prepared to enter within. But no one can superinduce a new nature on a given body; or successfully and appositely change it into another body; unless he has first a competent knowledge of the body to be altered or transformed." It must be confessed that Lord Bacon, emerging as he did from the prejudices of those ages in which philosophers pretended to account for almost everything, seems not only to have anticipated, as we have already observed, a greater perfection in human knowledge than it will probably ever attain, but also to have somewhat mistaken the way in which knowledge is to be converted to practical purposes. He supposes that if the form, or cause, or law, of any quality were known, we should be able, by inducing that "form" on any body, to communicate to it the said quality. It is not obvious, however, that even this knowledge would necessarily conduce to more simple and advantageous methods, than those of which the arts now furnish so many specimens. We are quite ignorant, for instance, on what colour in bodies precisely depends what peculiar construction of surface it is, which makes a body reflect one particular species of light rather than another; yet we know how to communicate this quality from one substance to another. Would a knowledge of that concealed structure, on which this reflection depends, enable us to impart it to bodies more easily than we are able to do by immersing them in a liquid of a given colour?

Lord Bacon proceeds to make some remarks upon several of those changes in bodies, which he seems to have considered it within human power possibly to produce. He partly draws his illustrations from the pursuits of the alchemists; and makes some suppositions savouring to

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us a little of paradox, though we cannot but discern his great sagacity, and admire his persevering diligence, amidst all the disadvantages under which he laboured. "We shall examine," says he, "what kind of rule, direction, or leading, a man would principally wish for, in order to superinduce an assigned nature upon a given body; as if any one should desire to superinduce upon silver the yellow colour of gold; and to increase its specific gravity; or to superinduce malleability upon glass; or vegetation upon a body not of the vegetable kind.” "The rule for the transmutation of bodies is of two kinds. first regards a body as a certain collection, or combination of simple natures (properties). Thus, for example, in gold, there meet together yellowness; a determinate gravity; malleability to a certain degree; fixedness in the fire; a particular manner of flowing in the fire; a determinate way of solution, etc., which are the simple natures (properties) in gold. For he who understands forms (causes), and the manner of superinducing this yellowness, gravity, ductility, fixedness, faculty of fusion, solution, etc., with their particular degrees, and proportions, will consider how to join them together in some body, so that a transmutation into gold shall follow."

“But the second kind of rule, which depends upon discovering the latent process, proceeds by concrete bodies, such as they are found in the ordinary course of nature: for example,-when inquiry is made from what origin, by what means, and in what procedure, gold, or any other metal, or stone, is generated from its first fluid matter, or rudiments, up to a perfect mineral. Or, again, by what process plants are generated, from the first concretions of their juices in the earth, or from the seed to a formed plant; together with the whole succession of motion, and the various aud continued endeavours of nature. And this inquiry does not only regard the generation of bodies, but likewise other motions and works of nature: for example,—when inquiry is made into the whole series and continued actions of nutrition, from the first receiving of the aliment to a perfect assimilation; or, after the same manner, into the voluntary motions of animals, from the first impression of the imagination, and the continued efforts of the spirit, down to the bending and moving of the limbs; or again, in explaining the motion of the tongue, lips, and other organs, up to the formation of articulate sounds. For these things, also, have regard to concrete natures, or natures associate and organical.-And where mankind has no power of operating, but only of contemplating, yet the inquiry of the fact, or truth of the thing, belongs, no less than the knowledge of causes and relations, to the primary and universal axioms of simple natures: suppose, for example, the inquiry about the nature of spontaneous rotation, attraction, and many other natures; which are more common and familiar to us than the celestial bodies themselves. And let no one expect to determine the question whether the diurnal motion belongs to the heavens, or to the earth, unless he first understand the nature of spontaneous rotation.”

The above passages, while they furnish an example of that acuteness and comprehension which so eminently distinguished their author, are not free from indications of his propensity to expect too much from human ingenuity, and to place the evidence of truth, in some respects, too high. His remark, for instance, with regard to the

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"nature of spontaneous rotation," whatever idea he attached to it, as belonging to the celestial motions, may account, in some measure, for his prejudice against the doctrine of Copernicus, which attributed the diurnal motion to the earth, and not to the heavens; and which had been published to the world many years before Bacon flourished. Indeed, a proneness to form boundless expectations as to what human power might effect; and, in the very infancy of practical science, to look for achievements higher than we can, even in its more advanced age, venture to hope for, is one of the most remarkable features in the elevated and daring genius of this great man.

Further, to explain his views with regard to the inquiry into the latent structure of bodies, he points out what he conceives to be some of the proper objects on which this minute investigation may be instituted, as iron and stone; the root, leaves, and flowers of plants; the flesh, blood, and bones of animals. Distillation, and other methods of separation, are instances, as collecting together the different homogeneous or similar particles of the same body. He here, however, acutely cautions the chemists of his day against supposing that all the natures (qualities) which may be exhibited in the separation of the parts of any substance, must have existed in the compound; new natures (properties) being often superinduced by heat, or some other method of resolving bodies; "for this structure," he observes, "is a thing of great delicacy and subtilty, and may be rather confounded, than discovered and brought to light, by the operations of fire." He adds, in his usual serious and imaginative style: "Bodies, therefore, are to be separated, not (merely) by fire, but by reason, and genuine induction; with the assistance of experiments; for we must go over from Vulcan to Minerva, if we would bring to light the real textures and structures of bodies."

On the sanguine expectations and lofty aims which Lord Bacon indulged, with regard to what human industry and perseverance might effect, he proposes to found what he terms the "just division of philosophy, and the sciences," into metaphysics and physics. "The inquiry of forms," he says, which, from the reason of the thing itself, and their own law, are eternal and immutable, may make metaphysics; and the inquiry into the efficient cause, the matter, the latent process, and the latent structure, may constitute physics, since these several (latter) particulars regard the ordinary course, and not the fundamental and eternal laws of nature." Certain it is, that however just such a general division of all human knowledge might be in Bacon's sense of it, could we realise his ideas and aims as to the discovery of forms, no progress has, as yet, been made towards the hopeful attainment of such a system of metaphysics; and probably the more secret operations of nature may for ever remain so shrouded from human penetration, as to render it impossible to say, in any one instance, that we have reached the goal, ascertained the very first in the series of second causes, and drawn the exact line between the subordinate operations of matter, and the immediate agency of the Infinite Spirit.-The following passages, on the "raising of axioms, or principles from experience," are introductory to the tables in which Bacon has exemplified his own method of induction, in an inquiry into the "form" of heat; or, in what heat consists.

"The raising of axioms from experience is divided into three kinds of administrations or helps; 1. for the sense; 2. for the memory; and 3. for the reason."

(1.) "Therefore, a just and adequate natural and experimental history is to be procured, as the foundation of the whole thing; for we are not to fancy or imagine, but to discover what are the works and laws of nature."

(2.) "Such history must be digested and ranged in proper order; therefore tables and subservient chains of instances are to be formed in such manner, that the understanding may commodiously work upon them."

(3.) “And though this were done, yet the understanding, left to itself, and its own spontaneous motion, is unequal to the work, and unfit to take upon it the raising of axioms, unless it be first regulated, strengthened, and guarded; therefore, in the third place, genuine and real induction must be used as the key of interpretation.'

"The inquiry of forms proceeds in this manner. First, all the known instances, agreeing in the same nature, though in the most dissimilar subjects, are to be brought together, and placed before the understanding. And this collection is to be made historically, without any overhasty indulgence of speculation, or any great subtilty for the present. We will illustrate the thing by an example in the inquiry into the form of heat."

Section II. Of the Tables given in Illustration of the Inductive Method.

The materials from which Lord Bacon designed that tables of this kind should be composed, for the future advancement of science, were such as he himself has sketched out in his book entitled, after the quaint fashion of the time, Sylva Sylvarum, or "A Natural History in Ten Centuries;" each of the ten sections into which it is divided containing one hundred facts and experiments, relating to a great variety of subjects; the term natural history being here used in a very extensive sense, to signify a record of observations on nature in general.

Such a history of facts as that from which tables should be drawn, was to contain an account of the subject under examination, in all the varieties and modifications of which the appearances belonging to it were susceptible. Not only were these facts in nature to be included in it, which offer themselves at once, and of their own accord, to the senses, but also all those experiments which might be instituted for the discovery of new facts relating to the same inquiry. These facts and experiments were to be ascertained with the greatest care; faithfully and simply stated, without mixing up any theory with the narration of them; and distinctly arranged. If any thing rested on doubtful evidence, this was not to be altogether excluded from the history of the subject, but to be noted down as uncertain, together with the reasons for so regarding it; and it was not to be employed as evidence in the discovery of forms, or ultimate causes, till rendered more probable by other facts, on which there rested nothing doubtful. In short, this history of nature was to be, as much as possible, a copy of nature herself, both as regarded obvious facts, and actual experiments; for, in experiments, as Bacon observes, "man does nothing more than bring things nearer to one another, or carry them farther off; the rest is performed

by nature." This remark has its exemplification in such operations as the firing of a pistol, the discharge of an electrical jar, and in all the experiments of chemistry, in which the art of man does no more than commence the process by applying the spark to the gunpowder, or by causing the connection between the inside and outside of the jar to be produced, or the electric circle to be completed; or by bringing the chemical agents into contact with each other; the rest is done by nature herself.

It must be acknowledged that a single glance into the Sylva Sylvarum will convince the reader that it is far from answering to the standard which its great author sets up for regulating the collection of the materials of scientific inquiry. In his "Experiment Solitary touching the commixture of flame and air, and the great force thereof," he says, "As for living creatures, it is certain their vital spirits are a substance compounded of an airy and flamy matter. It is no marvel that a small quantity of spirits in the cells of the brain, and canals of the sinews, should be able to move the whole body, which is of so great mass; such is the force of these two natures, air and flame, when they incorporate." It is unnecessary to adduce other specimens, many of which are to be found, as fanciful in matter, as vague in statement, and as gratuitous in evidence; in a word, exhibiting as complete a departure from the severity of the inductive method. Yet, amidst this indigested mass of facts and fancies, it is impossible not to discern the unwearied diligence, the acuteness, the boundless curiosity, and insatiable appetite for knowledge, which Bacon possessed. It is interesting to see the energies of such a mind grappling with the difficulties which inevitably surrounded it; eager for liberty, beneath the shackles that cramped its exertions; panting for the pure air of truth, amidst those oppressive mists of error which beset it on all sides; and more readily taking up with error, from its very impatience for truth. Bacon's faults as a practical natural philosopher, the occasional credulity and love of theory which he manifests, are only the more remarkable from his having so admirably descanted on those very errors by way of speculation. To free himself from the actual dominion of error in natural science, even though he had such lofty general conceptions of truth, was perhaps impossible in his situation. The morning star of nature is, in the language of Milton, "last in the train of night,” though it belongs "better to the dawn;" and the sun himself cannot shake off the mists that attend his rising-time is needed to dispel them: Bacon was the first grand luminary of science, and it was no wonder that a portion of the darkness of the middle ages should still cling around him.

Nor was he himself unaware of the imperfection of those crude and recent materials from which, for want of collections of facts sufficiently accurate and long-established, he was obliged to deduce his tables. Perhaps, what he chiefly intended was a rough sketch of the history of nature, leaving it to posterity to follow out his plan with greater accuracy, and with all the advantages of time. This appears, indeed, from the caution which he gives his readers, quoted in our former Treatise on this work, not to reject his method itself, because some experiments and facts may not be so well verified as might be wished; or others even absolutely false. The same may be gathered from the