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tific notions become more generally diffused; the interest which we feel in any phenomenon is much impaired, when we know that however marvellous it may seem to us it can nevertheless be intelligibly explained. Men learn by degrees to leave off wondering, and to seek for causes, or trust for information to those who do. At present, popular books on science attempt for the most part to make abstract theories intelligible, or at least to give an account of what these theories are about. But in Bacon's time, and still more at an earlier period, men delighted in nothing more than in collections of remarkable facts; the more marvellous, so they did not become altogether incredible, the better. In those days men were much more nearly on a level in scientific matters than they are now; and the reader of Mizaldus or of John Baptist Porta was not mortified by the reflection that his wonder was only the result of his own ignorance. All men were, as it seemed, equally ignorant of the occult causes of phenomena, and if any explanation was offered it was such as all men could equally understand. For at best these explanations involved only loose and popular notions of force and motion, and for the most part they merely referred the phenomena to sympathy and antipathy, the influence of the stars, specific forms, and the like, of which principles the modus operandi was, by the consent of all men, held undiscoverable. To this class of writings the Sylva Sylvarum seems naturally to belong, and, in truth, a considerable part of it is copied from the most celebrated book of the kind, namely Porta's Natural Magic. It has doubtless a more scientific character than the average of similar works, but there are some to which in this and in other respects it is decidedly inferior. I refer particularly to Cardan's De Subtilitate, and to his De Rerum Varietate. Both of them supplied some of the facts mentioned in the Sylva Sylvarum.

I may be allowed to digress for a moment from the Sylva Sylvarum to a subject of considerable interest, namely the facility with which miraculous stories were received in the middle ages. We are apt to regard this as a proof of the prevalence of gross superstition; whereas in reality miracles were simply believed like other marvels. The habit of asking how effects are produced had then no existence, and consequently the à priori difficulty which hinders men from believing

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in wonderful stories, except on commensurate evidence, was never felt. Every one believed, for instance, that bleeding might be stopped by touching the wounded man with a bloodstone, why might not the same effect be produced by the relic of a saint? And so in all similar cases. The à priori conceivability of any assertion is one of the circumstances by which men are decided in believing or disbelieving it; but this operates differently according to the mental habits of different The subject cannot here be pursued farther, though, from its connexion with the application of the theory of probabilities to questions of evidence, it is by no means unimportant.

men.

The Sylva Sylvarum consists of one thousand paragraphs, and is divided into ten centuries. Each of these paragraphs contains a statement of one or more facts, accompanied generally by some remarks tending more or less to explain the causes of the observed phenomena. The facts themselves are derived from a variety of sources; some from Bacon's own observation, some perhaps from oral report, and the remainder from books. In many places they seem to have been noted down as the book from which they are taken was read; at least they occur in the same order as in the original work. The principal sources are Aristotle's Problems, his De mirabilibus auscultationibus (not genuine), and his Meteorologics; Pliny's Natural History, Porta's Natural Magic, and Sandys's Travels. To these are to be added Cardan De Subtilitate, Scaliger Adversus Cardanum, and one or two others. The Natural Magic contributes more than any other book, and next to it, I think, Aristotle's Problems.

The route which Sandys, whose book was published in 1615, followed in his travels may almost be traced in Bacon's extracts. Thus, in (701) he is at Lemnos, from whence he proceeds in the next two paragraphs up the Dardanelles to Constantinople. In (704) and (705) we find some mention of what he saw there; a subject resumed in (738) and continued to (741). In (743) he has reached Egypt, where he is found again in (767) and the next paragraph. The succeeding sixteen paragraphs follow him, with some admixture of extraneous matter, through Syria and Palestine to Sicily and the neighbourhood of Naples.

From Cardan is taken the great mass of what is said in the tenth century touching sympathy and antipathy. One or two

curious stories Bacon adds from his own experience, and he also mentions two remarkable cases of instinctive divination. Of these the first is the story told in the life of Angelo Caltho, prefixed to some editions of Comines's Memoirs, namely that he announced the death of Charles the Bold at the very time at which it took place: the other is mentioned in Catena's Life of Pius V.,—that he knew of the victory at Lepanto as soon as it was won. For the first story Bacon refers to Comines, who says nothing about it, and whose silence is all but conclusive against its truth 1; for the second he gives no authority, but there is no doubt but that he derived it from Catena, with whose book he was in all probability acquainted, as what he says of Pius V. in the beginning of the Advancement of Learning is taken from it.

Porta's Natural Magic supplied Bacon with almost all he says of the changes which may be produced in fruits and other vegetable products by peculiar modes of cultivation. In some of the paragraphs taken from Porta he refers to "one of the ancients," the reason of which is that almost all Porta's statements are supported by reference to a Greek or Latin author. If we did not know the channel through which his information is derived, we might give him credit for much curious research. Thus in (458) he observes that it is reported by one of the ancients that artichokes will be less prickly if their tops have been grated off upon a stone. The writer referred to is Varro, but the statement is only preserved in the Geoponica; it does not occur in any part of his works now extant. As the Geoponica are certainly not often read or even quoted, it would have been interesting to know that Bacon was acquainted with them. Unfortunately, on looking into the Natural Magic, we find that Bacon was in this case simply a transcriber.

The statements taken from Aristotle's Problems relate, like the problems themselves, to a great variety of subjects. Bacon does not adopt Aristotle's solutions, at least not generally, but after stating affirmatively the fact of which Aristotle inquires

The misfortunes of the Duke of Burgundy are recorded in four curious lines, written apparently by a contemporary. They are manifestly corrupt, but may perhaps be thus restored:

Nix Burgundo nocuit

Sed Gransen grande gravavit

Morat momordit

Quem lancea Nancy necavit.

KELLER'S Romvart, p. 157.

the cause, he gives his own explanation of it, often introducing it by the formula, " the reason is, &c.," which is, I think, not employed except in paragraphs taken from or suggested by something in the Problems. The paragraphs from (837) to (846) are evidently the result of Bacon's having been reading the fourth book of the Meteorologics, but they consist less of statements of facts than of speculations relating to familiarly known phenomena.

Pliny's Natural History supplied Bacon with many remarks on agriculture and kindred subjects.

The description of the chameleon in (360) is clearly taken from Scaliger's Exercitationes adversus Cardanum, and in another paragraph (694) he mentions Scaliger by name, and approves of something which is said in the same work. Scaliger and Comines are, I think, the only two modern writers mentioned in the Sylva Sylvarum.

In the paragraphs of the second century, which relate to music, Bacon refers to the controversy as to whether the interval of the fourth ought to be considered a harmony. There are a number of books by which this question may have been suggested to him, but it is impossible to know which of them he had read. His opinion in favour of the fourth is quoted with great approbation by [Charles Butler, of Magdalen College, Oxford, in his Principles of Music (1636). See note on Exp. 107.]

In concluding these desultory remarks it may be well to observe that the name Sylva Sylvarum seems to be a Hebraism for optima sylva1; sylva being used as aŋ in Greek for the materials out of which anything is to be constructed. The name therefore accords with Bacon's notion of natural history; namely that it ought to supply the materials with which the new philosophy is to be built up.

I should rather take it to mean a collection of collections; that is, a variety of Sylvæ (or collections of facts relating to particular subjects) gathered together. Almost all the experiments concerning sound, which extend from 100 to 290, are to be found in a Latin fragment which has Sylva Soni et Auditus for one of its titles. That is one of the Sylva of which this Sylva Sylvarum is made up.—J. S.

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