120 NOVUM ORGANUM 



matter, latent process, and latent conformation (which all 

 relate merely to the ordinary course of nature, and not to 

 her fundamental and eternal laws), constitute physics. 

 Parallel to these, let there be two practical divisions; to 

 physics that of mechanics, and to metaphysics that of magic, 

 in the purest sense of the term, as applied to its ample 

 means, and its command over nature. 



X. The object of our philosophy being thus laid down, 

 we proceed to precepts, in the most clear and regular order. 

 The signs for the interpretation of nature comprehend two 

 divisions; the firstjregards the eliciting or^creatmg of Axioms 

 fr^m__experiment, the s^c^njd^the^d. educing or deriving^ f 

 new experiments_iiom_axioms. The first admits of three 

 subdivisions into ministrations. 1. To the senses. 2. To 

 the memory. 3. To the mind or reason. 



For we must first prepare as a foundation for the whole, 

 a complete and accurate natural and experimental history. 

 &quot;We must not imagine or invent, but discover the acts and 

 properties of nature. 



But natural and experimental history is so varied and 

 diffuse, that it confounds and distracts the understanding 

 unless it be fixed and exhibited in due order. We must, 

 therefore, form tables and co-ordinations of instances, upon 



to watch over particular portions of the universe. The followers of Aristotle 

 accepted the whimsical title of Andronicus, and in their usual manner allowed 

 a word to unite things into one science which were plainly heterogeneous. 

 Their error was adopted by the Peripatetics of the Christian Church. The 

 schoolmen added to the notion of ontology, the science of the mind, or pneu- 

 matology, and as that genus of being has since become extinct with the schools, 

 metaphysics thus in modern parlance comes to be synonymous with psychology. 

 It were to be wished that Bacon s definition of the term had been accepted, and 

 mental science delivered from one of the greatest monstrosities in its nomencla 

 ture, yet Bacon whimsically enough in his De Augmentis includes mathematics 

 in metaphysics. Ed. 



