NOVUM ORGANUM 169 



XXYI. In the fifth rank of prerogative instances we will 

 class constitutive instances, which we are wont also to call 

 collective instances. They constitute a species or lesser 

 form, as it were, of the required nature. For since the real 

 forms (which are always convertible with the given nature) 

 lie at some depth, and are not easily discovered, the neces 

 sity of the case and the infirmity of the human understand 

 ing require that the particular forms, which collect certain 

 groups of instances (but by no means all) into some common 

 notion, should not be neglected, but most diligently ob 

 served. For whatever unites nature, even imperfectly, 

 opens the way to the discovery of the form. The in 

 stances, therefore, which are serviceable in this respect 

 are of no mean power, but endowed with some degree of 

 prerogative. 



Here, nevertheless, great care must be taken that, after 

 the discovery of several of these particular forms, and the 

 establishing of certain partitions or divisions of the required 

 nature derived from them, the human understanding do not 

 at once rest satisfied, without preparing for the investiga 

 tion of the great or leading form, and taking it for granted 

 that nature is compound and divided from its very root, de 

 spise and reject any further union as a point of superfluous 

 refinement, and tending to mere abstraction. 



For instance, let the required -nature be memory, or that 



&quot;Tenuatus in auras 



Aeraque humor abit, etc., etc. 



Inde retro redeunt, idemque retexitur ordo.&quot; xv. 246-249. 



arid Seneca, in the third book of his Natural Philosophy, quest, iv., states the 

 opinion in more precise language than either the ancient bard or the modern 

 philosopher. Ed. 



