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and enter such a concretion of body, or else fly from and shun it; whence he who well un→ derstands the constitution or structure of this body, will not be far from disclosing the form of the nature sought.

For example, let the nature sought be heat, and an accompanying instance is flame; for in water, air, stone, metal, and numerous other bodies, heat is moveable, and may come and go, but all flame is hot; so that heat perpetually attends in the concretion or whole of flame. But there is no hostile instance* of heat to be found; for as to the internal parts of the earth, the sense has no cognizance thereof, but of all the bodies known to men, there is no concrete unsusceptible of heat t.

Again, let the nature sought be consistence, and air is a hostile instance‡; for metal may flow, and be consistent; so may glass; water likewise may be consistent, when it is froze; but it is impossible that air should ever be consistent, or put off its fluidity.

But there remain two admonitions with regard to these instances of fixed propositions, useful to the business in hand: the first is, that

* Viz. The converse of an accompanying instance. † See the Tables for investigating the form of heat. ± Because consistence always flies from air; or, in other words, always remains fluid.

if an affirmative or negative be universally and plainly wanting, this should be carefully noted as a non-entity, as we did in the subject of heat *, where a negative, as to all the bodies within our knowledge, is universally wanting†.

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In like manner, if the nature sought be eternity, or incorruptibility, we have universally no affirmative upon this earth; for neither can eternity or incorruptibility be attributed to, or predicated of any substance below the celestial bodies, or above the internal parts of our globe.

The other admonition is, that to the universal propositions, as well affirmative as negative, with regard to any concretes, those concretes also be subjoined §, which seems to approach nearest to that which is the non-entity; as for example, in the subject of heat, the softest or mildest flames, or such as burn the least ||; and again, in the subject of incorruptibility, gold, which comes the nearest to an incorruptible body; for all these

* See Tables II. and III.

† All the known bodies being, without exception, susceptible of heat. See Table III. Aph. 20.

That is, nothing here below is excluded from corrup tibility and change.

§ See below, Aph. 34.

Suppose the flame of spirit of wine, the Ignis Fatuus, or that harmless lambent flame, if real, said to have played about the heads of certain children.

things indicate the limits of nature, or shew the distance betwixt existence and non-existence, and serve to confine or. circumscribe forms, so as to keep them from sliding or wandering out of the limits and conditions of matter*.

34. In the twelfth place come the subjunctive instances, mentioned in the preceding aphorism, which we otherwise call instances of extremity, or termination; for these instances are not only useful, as being subjoined to fixed propositions, but also by themselves, in their own particular; as excellently shewing the true divisions or separation of nature; the measures of things; and how far nature may act and suffer; and again, they shew the transition of nature from one thing to another.

Of this kind are gold, in weight; iron, in hardness; the whale, in bulk of animal body; the hound, in point of scent; the explosion of gunpowder, in sudden expansion; and the like. Those things also which are last in the lowest degree, should be no less regarded than those that are first in the highest; as spirit of wine in

*It deserves to be observed, how extremely careful and solicitous the author is to keep his forms from being any way notional or abstract things, which one might, at the first mentioning, be apt to suppose them; especially as men's ears have been accustomed to Aristotelian forms.

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weight or levity; silk, in hardness or softness the minute worms of the skin, in animal bulk * &c.

35. In the thirteenth place come instances of alliance, confederacy, or union; that is, such as mix and unite natures, supposed to be heterogeneous, and noted and marked out for such by the divisions commonly received. For these instances of alliance shew, that the operations and effects attributed as peculiar to certain heterogeneous natures agree also to others, so as to prove that the heterogeneity which was founded in opinion is not true or essential, and nothing more than the modification of a common nature. Whence these instances are of excellent use to rouze and elevate the understanding from differences to genuses or kinds, and to take off the masks, and discover the counterfeit resemblances of things that occur and present themselves dressed, as it were, in concrete substances.

For example, let the nature sought be heat; in this case it seems a settled and authorized division, that there are three degrees of heat, viz. (1.) that of the heavenly bodies; (2.) that

These are correlative to the former; so that the two kinds limit nature both ways, or as well in the descending as in the ascending scale.

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of animals; and (3.) that of fire: and that these heats (especially one of them compared with the other two) are in essence and species, or in their specific natures, perfectly different and heterogeneous, as the celestial and animal heats generate and cherish, but the heat of culinary fire corrupts and destroys.. Here, therefore, we have an instance of alliance in that common experiment, when a grown branch of a vine is brought withinside of a house, or into a room where a continual fire is kept, so as to ripen the grapes a month sooner than the grapes of the same vine are ripened without doors; whence it appears, that fruit, even while it hangs upon the tree may be ripened by culinary fire, though, such ripening might seem to be a peculiar work of the sun.

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And upon such an information as this, the understanding easily rouses, throws off the notion of essential heterogeneity, and enquires into those real differences to be found betwixt the heat of the sun and the heat of culinary fire, which cause their operation to be so dissimilar, though they partake of a common nature.

These differences will be found to be four; viz. (1.) that the heat of the sun, with respect to the heat of fire, is much more mild and gentle in degree; (2.) that it is of a much moister quality, especially as derived to us through the

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