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will have them to be the virtues and qualities of the tangible parts which they see; whereas they are things by themselves. And then, when they come to plants and living creatures, they call them souls. And such superficial speculations they have; like prospectives, that shew things inward, when they are but paintings. Neither is this a question of words, but infinitely material in nature. For spirits are nothing else but a natural body, rarified to a proportion, and included in the tangible parts of bodies, as in an integument. And they be no less differing one from the other than the dense or tangible parts; and they are in all tangible bodies whatsoever, more or less; and they are never (almost) at rest; and from them and their motions principally proceed arefaction, colliquation, concoction, maturation, putrefaction, vivification, and most of the effects of nature; for, as we have figured them in our Sapientia Veterum, in the fable of Proserpina, you shall in the infernal regiment hear little doings of Pluto, but most of Proserpina: for tangible parts in bodies are stupid things; and the spirits do (in effect) all. As for the differences of tangible parts in bodies, the industry of the chemists hath given some light, in discerning by their separations the oily, crude, pure, impure, fine, gross parts of bodies, and the like. And the physicians are content to acknowledge that herbs and drugs have divers parts; as that opium hath a stupefacting part, and a heating part; the one moving sleep, the other a sweat following; and that rhubarb hath purging parts, and astringent parts, &c. But this whole inquisition is weakly and negligently handled. And for the more subtile differences of the minute parts, and the posture of them in the body, (which also hath great effects,) they are not at all touched as for the motions of the minute parts of bodies, which do so great effects, they have not been observed at all; because they are invisible, and incur not to the eye; but yet they are to be deprehended by experience: as Democritus said well, when they charged him to hold that the world was made of such little motes as were seen in the sun: Atomus, saith he, necessitate rationis et experientia esse convincitur; atomum enim nemo unquam vidit.1 And therefore the tumult in

There is no doubt but that Democritus affirmed that the atom is cognisable by the mind only, and nowise by the senses. See among other passages Sextus Empiricus Adver. Logicos, ii. 6. On the other hand, he certainly compared his atoms to motes seen in the sunbeams, probably because the latter, though known to exist, are for the most part invisible. See Arist. De Anim. i. 2.

the parts of solid bodies when they are compressed, which is the cause of all flight of bodies through the air, and of other mechanical motions, (as hath been partly touched before, and shall be thoroughly handled in due place,) is not seen at all. But nevertheless, if you know it not, or inquire it not attentively and diligently, you shall never be able to discern, and much less to produce, a number of mechanical motions. Again, as to the motions corporal within the inclosures of bodies, whereby the effects (which were mentioned before) pass between the spirits and the tangible parts, (which are arefaction, colliquation, concoction, maturation, &c.,) they are not at all handled. But they are put off by the names of virtues, and natures, and actions, and passions, and such other logical words.

Experiment solitary touching the power of heat.

99. It is certain that of all powers in nature heat is the chief; both in the frame of nature, and in the works of art. Certain it is likewise that the effects of heat are most advanced, when it worketh upon a body without loss or dissipation of the matter; for that ever betrayeth the account. And therefore it is true that the power of heat is best perceived in distillations which are performed in close vessels and receptacles. But yet there is a higher degree; for howsoever distillations do keep the body in cells and cloisters, without going abroad, yet they give space unto bodies to turn into vapour, to return into liquor, and to separate one part from another. So as nature doth expatiate, although it hath not full liberty; whereby the true and ultime operations of heat are not attained. But if bodies may be altered by heat, and yet no such reciprocation of rarefaction and of condensation and of separation admitted, then it is like that this Proteus of matter, being held by the sleeves, will turn and change into many metamorphoses. Take therefore a square vessel of iron, in form of a cube, and let it have good thick and strong sides. Put it into a cube of wood, that may fill it as close as may be,

1

I do not know what Bacon would have thought of the story told of the Emperor Frederick II. An old commentator on Dante affirms that, in order to prove the nonexistence of the soul, the emperor enclosed a criminal in a chest, and kept him there until death took place. The chest being opened, he asked those whom he wished to refute what had become of the soul; but received quite as good an answer as the question deserved, namely, that it had escaped by the same route as the cries which, for some time after being shut in, the unhappy man had been heard to utter.

and let it have a cover of iron, as strong (at least) as the sides; and let it be well luted, after the manner of the chemists. Then place the vessel within burning coals, kept quick kindled, for some few hours' space. Then take the vessel from the fire, and take off the cover, and see what is become of the wood. I conceive that since all inflammation and evaporation are utterly prohibited, and the body still turned upon itself, that one of these two effects will follow: either that the body of the wood will be turned into a kind of amalagma, (as the chemists call it,) or that the finer part will be turned into air, and the grosser stick as it were baked and incrustate upon the sides of the vessel; being become of a denser matter than the wood itself, crude. And for another trial, take also water, and put it in the like vessel, stopped as before; but use a gentler heat, and remove the vessel sometimes from the fire; and again, after some small time, when it is cold, renew the heating of it; and repeat this alteration some few times; and if you can once bring to pass, that the water, which is one of the simplest bodies, be changed in colour, odour, or taste, after the manner of compound bodies, you may be sure that there is a great work wrought in nature, and a notable entrance made into strange changes of bodies and productions; and also a way made to do that by fire in small time, which the sun and age do in long time. But of the admirable effects of this distillation in close (for so we will call it), which is like the wombs and matrices of living creatures, where nothing expireth nor separateth, we will speak fully in the due place; not that we aim at the making of Paracelsus' pygmies', or any such prodigious follies; but that we know the effects of heat will be such as will scarce fall under the conceit of man, if the force of it be altogether kept in.

Experiment solitary touching the impossibility of annihilation.

100. There is nothing more certain in nature than that it is impossible for any body to be utterly annihilated; but that as it was the work of the omnipotency of God to make somewhat of nothing, so it requireth the like omnipotency to turn somewhat into nothing. And therefore it is well said by an obscure writer of the sect of the chemists, that there is no such way to

1 See Paracelsus, De Nymph. Sylph, Pygmæ. et Salam.

effect the strange transmutations of bodies, as to endeavour and urge by all means the reducing of them to nothing. And herein is contained also a great secret of preservation of bodies from change; for if you can prohibit, that they neither turn into air, because no air cometh to them; nor go into the bodies adjacent, because they are utterly heterogeneal; nor make a round and circulation within themselves; they will never change, though they be in their nature never so perishable or mutable. We see how flies, and spiders, and the like, get a sepulchre in amber, more durable than the monument and embalming of the body of any king. And I conceive the like will be of bodies put into quicksilver. But then they must be but thin, as a leaf, or a piece of paper or parchment; for if they have a greater crassitude, they will alter in their own body, though they spend not. But of this we shall speak more when we handle the title of conservation of bodies.

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Experiments in consort touching Music.

MUSIC, in the practice, hath been well pursued, and in good variety; but in the theory, and especially in the yielding of the causes of the practique, very weakly; being reduced into certain mystical subtilties, of no use and not much truth. We shall, therefore, after our manner, join the contemplative and active part together.

101. All sounds are either musical sounds, which we call tones; whereunto there may be an harmony; which sounds are ever equal; as singing, the sounds of stringed and windinstruments, the ringing of bells, &c.; or immusical sounds; which are ever unequal; such as are the voice in speaking, all whisperings, all voices of beasts and birds, (except they be singing-birds,) all percussions of stones, wood, parchment, skins (as in drums), and infinite others.

102. The sounds that produce tones, are ever from such bodies as are in their parts and pores equal; as well as the sounds themselves are equal; and such are the percussions of metal, as in bells; of glass, as in the filliping of a drinking glass; of air, as in men's voices whilst they sing, in pipes, whistles, organs, stringed instruments, &c.; and of water, as in the nightingale-pipes of regals' or organs, and other hydraulics; which the ancients had, and Nero did so much esteem, but are now lost. And if any man think that the string of the bow

See the note at § 172.

2 Suetonius in Nero, c. 41. Hydraulic music is mentioned as one of the lost arts by Pancirollo. See his Raccolta Breve, &c., i. 7. See also Vitruvius, [lib. v. c. 5.].

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