NOVUM ORGANUM 261 



sounds are agitated by the wind, like waves, yet it is 

 to be observed, that the same sound does not last during 

 the whole time of the reverberation. Thus, when a bell 

 is struck, the sound appears to be continued for a consid 

 erable time, and one might easily be led into the mistake 

 of supposing it to float and remain in the air during the 

 whole time, which is most erroneous. 89 For the reverbera 

 tion is not one identical sound, but the repetition of sounds, 

 which is made manifest by stopping and confining the sono 

 rous body; thus, if a bell be stopped and held tightly, so 

 as to be immovable, the sound fails, and there is no further 

 reverberation, and if a musical string be touched after the 

 first vibration, either with the finger (as in the harp), or a 

 quill (as in the harpsichord), the sound immediately ceases. 

 If the magnet be removed the iron falls. The moon, how 

 ever, cannot be removed from the sea, nor the earth&quot; from a 

 heavy falling body, and we can, therefore, make no experi 

 ment upon them; but the case is the same. 



Let the fourteenth motion be that configuration or po 

 sition, by which bodies appear to desire a peculiar situa 

 tion, collocation, and configuration with others, rather than 

 union or separation, This is a very abstruse notion, and 

 has not been well investigated; and, in some instances, 

 appears to occur almost without any cause, although we 



89 Aristotle s doctrine, that sound takes place when bodies strike the air, 

 which the modern science of acoustics has completely established, was rejected 

 by Bacon in a treatise upon the same subject: &quot;The collision or thrusting of 

 air, :? he says, &quot;which they will have to be the cause of sound, neither denotes 

 the form nor the latent process of sound, but is a term of ignorance and of 

 superficial contemplation.&quot; To get out of the difficulty, he betook himself to 

 his theory of spirits, a species of phenomena which he constantly introduces 

 to give himself the air of explaining things he could not understand, or would 

 not admit upon the hypothesis of his opponents. Ed. 



