i6 CLASSICS OF MODERN SCIENCE 

 (such indeed may be deemed those we have alluded to above) are 

 sufficiently manifest, to which may be added those that exist between 

 different bodies and their objects, and, since these latter are more 

 apparent, they may throw great light when well observed and 

 diligently examined upon those which are more latent. 



The more internal harmony and aversion, or friendship and enmity 

 (for superstition and folly have rendered the terms of sympathy and 

 antipathy almost disgusting) have been either falsely assigned, or 

 mixed with fable, or most rarely discovered from neglect. For if 

 one were to allege that there is an enmity between the vine and the 

 cabbage, because they will not come up well sown together, there is 

 a sufficient reason for it in the succulent and absorbent nature of 

 each plant, so that the one defrauds the other. Again, if one were 

 to say that there is a harmony and friendship between the corn and 

 the corn-flower, or the wild poppy, because the latter seldom grow 

 anywhere but in cultivated soils, he ought rather to say, there is an 

 enmity between them, for the poppy and the corn-flower are produced 

 and created by those juices which the corn has left and rejected, so 

 that the sowing of the corn prepares the ground for their production. 

 And there are a vast number of similar false assertions. As for 

 fables, they must be totally exterminated. There remains, then, but 

 a scanty supply of such species of harmony as has borne the test 

 of experiment, such as that between the magnet and iron, gold and 

 quicksilver, and the like. In chemical experiments on metals, how- 

 ever, there are some others worthy of notice, but the greatest abun- 

 dance (where the whole are so few in numbers) is discovered in 

 certain medicines, which, from their occult and specific qualities (as 

 they are termed), affect particular limbs, humors, diseases, or con- 

 stitutions. Nor should we omit the harmony between the motion 

 and phenomena of the moon, and their effects on lower bodies, which 

 may be brought together by an accurate and honest selection from 

 the experiments of agriculture, navigation, and medicine, or of other 

 sciences. By as much as these general instances, however, of more 

 latent harmony, are rare, with so much the more diligence are they 

 to be inquired after, through tradition, and faithful and honest re- 

 ports, but without rashness and credulity, with an anxious and, as it 

 were, hesitating degree of reliance. There remains one species of 

 harmony which, though simple in its mode of action, is yet most 



