Novum organum

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

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

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

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

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

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

[90] The Italian fire-fly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two high authorities in physical science (v. Herschel, Nat. Phil., art. 192; Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. p. 243) pronounce these instances of little service in the task of induction, being for the most part classed not according to the ideas which they involve, or to any obvious circumstance in the facts of which they consist, but according to the extent and manner of their influence upon the inquiry in which they are employed. Thus we have solitary instances, migrating instances, ostensive instances, clandestine instances, so termed according to the degree in which they exhibit, or seem to exhibit, the property, whose nature we would examine. We have guide-post instances, crucial instances, instances of the parted road, of the doorway, of the lamp, according to the guidance they supply to our advance. Whewell remarks that such a classification is much of the same nature as if, having to teach the art of building, we were to describe tools with reference to the amount and place of the work which they must do, instead of pointing out their construction and use; as if we were to inform the pupil that we must have tools for lifting a stone up, tools for moving it sidewise, tools for laying it square, and tools for cementing it firmly. The means are thus lost in the end, and we reap the fruits of unmethodical arrangement in the confusion of cross division.

In addition, all the instances are leavened with the error of confounding the laws with the causes of phenomena, and we are urged to adopt the fundamental error of seeking therein the universal agents, or general causes of phenomena, without ascending the gradual steps of intermediate laws.—Ed.

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

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

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

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

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

[113] Query?

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

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

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

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