118 NOVUM ORGANUM 



body, 8 what tangible essence; whether that spirit is copious 

 and exuberant, or meagre and scarce, fine or coarse, aeri 

 form or igniform, active or sluggish, weak or robust, pro 

 gressive or retrograde, abrupt or continuous, agreeing with 

 external and surrounding objects, or differing from them, 

 etc. In like manner must we treat tangible essence (which 

 admits of as many distinctions as the spirit), and its hairs, 

 fibres, and varied texture. Again, the situation of the spirit 

 in the corporeal mass, its pores, passages, , veins, and cells, 

 and the rudiments or first essays of the organic body, are 

 subject to the same examination. In these, however, as in 

 our former inquiries, and therefore in the whole investiga 

 tion of latent conformation, the only genuine and clear light 

 which completely dispels all darkness and subtile difficul 

 ties, is admitted by means of the primary axioms. 



VIII. This method will not bring us to atoms, 10 which 

 takes for granted the vacuum, and immutability of matter 

 (neither of which hypotheses is correct), but to the real par 

 ticles such as we discover them to be. Nor is there any 



9 By spirit, Bacon here plainly implies material fluid too fine to be grasped 

 by the unassisted sense, which rather operates than reasons. We sometimes 

 acjopt the same mode of expression, as in the words spirits of nitre, spirits of 

 wine. Some such agency has been assumed by nearly all the modern physi 

 cists, a few of whom, along with Bacon, would leave us to gather from their 

 expressions, that they believe such bodies endowed with the sentient powers 

 of perception. As another specimen of his sentiment on this subject, we may 

 refer to a paragraph on the decomposition of compounds, in his essay on death, 

 beginning &quot;The spirit which exists in all living bodies, keeps all the parts in 

 due subjection; when it escapes, the body decomposes, or the similar parts 

 unite.&quot; Ed. 



10 The theory of the Epicureans and others. The atoms are supposed to be 

 invisible, unalterable particles, endued with all the properties of the given body, 

 and forming that body by their union. They must be separated, of course, 

 which either takes a vacuum for granted, or introduces a tertium quid into the 

 composition of the body. 



