1 68 NOVUM ORGANUM 



penetrate further into wooden substances (such, as the ribs of 

 ships or the like), than the same arrows pointed with iron, 48 

 owing to the similarity of substance, though this quality was 

 previously latent in the wood. Again, although in the mass 

 air does not appear to attract air, nor water water, yet when 

 one bubble is brought near another, they are both more 

 readily dissolved, from the tendency to contact of the water 

 with the water, and the air with the air. 44 These clandes 

 tine instances (which are, as has been observed, of the most 

 important service) are principally to be observed in small 

 portions of bodies, for the larger masses observe more uni 

 versal and general forms, as will be mentioned in its proper 

 place. 45 



43 Query? 



44 The real cause of this phenomenon is the attraction of the surface-water 

 in the vessel by the sides of the bubbles. When the bubbles approach, the 

 sides nearest each other both tend to raise the small space of water between 

 them, and consequently less water is raised by each of these nearer sides than 

 by the exterior part of the bubble, and the greater weight of the water raised 

 on the exterior parts pushes the bubbles together. In the same manner a bub 

 ble near the side of a vessel is pushed toward it; the vessel and bubble both 

 drawing the water that is between them. The latter phenomenon cannot be 

 explained on Bacon s hypothesis. 



45 Modern discoveries appear to bear out the sagacity of Bacon s remark, 

 and the experiments of Baron Cagnard may be regarded as a first step toward 

 its full demonstration. After the new facts elicited by that philosopher, there 

 can be little doubt that the solid, liquid and aeriform state of bodies are merely 

 stages in a progress of gradual transition from one extreme to the other, and 

 that however strongly marked the distinctions between them may appear, they 

 will ultimately turn out to be separated by no sudden or violent line of de 

 marcation, but slide into each other by imperceptible gradations. Bacon s 

 suggestion, however, is as old as Pythagoras, and perhaps simultaneous with 

 the first dawn of philosophic reason. The doctrine of the reciprocal transmuta 

 tion of the elements underlies all the physical systems of the ancients, and was 

 adopted by the Epicureans as well as the Stoics. Ovid opens his last book of 

 the Metamorphoses with the poetry of the subject, where he expressly points 

 to the hint of Bacon : 



