NOVUM ORGANUM 233 



Again, some conflagrations and the kindling of flames 

 take place at very considerable distances with particular 

 substances, as they report of the naphtha of Babylon. 

 Heat, too, insinuates itself at wide distances, as does also 

 cold, so that the masses of ice which are broken off and 

 float upon the Northern Ocean, and are borne through the 

 Atlantic to the coast of Canada, become perceptible by 

 the inhabitants, and strike them with cold from a distance. 

 Perfumes also (though here there appears to be always some 

 corporeal emission) act at remarkable distances, as is experi 

 enced by persons sailing by the coast of Florida, or parts 

 of Spain, where there are whole woods of lemons, oranges, 

 and other odoriferous plants, or rosemary and marjoram 

 bushes, and the like. Lastly, the rays of light and the im 

 pressions of sound act at extensive distances. 



Yet all these powers, whether acting at a small or great 

 distance, certainly act within definite distances, which are 

 well ascertained by nature, so that there is a limit depend 

 ing either on the mass or quantity of the bodies, the vigor 

 or faintness of the powers, or the favorable or impeding na 

 ture of the medium, all of which should be taken into 



turn attract the earth in proportion to the force with which it was drawn out 

 of its orbit. The result of this combined action on our planet would elongate 

 its ecliptic orbit, and so far draw it from the source of heat, as to produce an 

 intensity of cold destructive to animal life. But this movement would imme 

 diately cease with the planetary concurrence which produced it, and the earth, 

 like a compressed spring, bound almost as near to the sun as she had been 

 drawn from it, the reaction of the heat on its surface being about as intense as 

 the cold caused by the first removal was severe. The earth, until it gained its 

 regular track, would thus alternately vibrate between each side of its orbit, 

 with successive changes in its atmosphere, proportional to the square of the 

 variation of its distance from the sun. In no place is Bacon s genius more 

 conspicuous than in these repeated guesses at truth. He would have been a 

 strong Copernican, had not Gilbert defended the system. Ed. 



