282 NOVUM ORGANUM 



operation and effect of continuance must be collected dili 

 gently from every quarter. 



5. The direction of motion (which is the fifth method 

 of action) is of no small use. We adopt this term, when 

 speaking of a body which, meeting with another, either 

 arrests, repels, allows, or directs its original motion. This 

 is the case principally in the figure and position of vessels. 

 An upright cone, for instance, promotes the condensation 

 of vapor in alembics, but when reversed, as in inverted 

 vessels, it assists the refining of sugar. Sometimes a curved 

 form, or one alternately contracted and dilated, is required. 

 Strainers may be ranged under this head, where the opposed 

 body opens a way for one portion of another substance and 

 impedes the rest. Nor is this process or any other direction 

 of motion carried on externally only, but sometimes by one 

 body within another. Thus, pebbles are thrown into water 

 to collect the muddy particles, and syrups are refined by 

 the white of an egg, which glues the grosser particles to 

 gether so as to facilitate their removal. Telesius, indeed, 

 rashly and ignorantly enough attributes the formation of 

 animals to this cause, by means of the channels and folds 

 of the womb. He ought to have observed a similar forma 

 tion of the young in eggs which have no wrinkles or in 

 equalities. One may observe a real result of this direction 

 of motion in casting and modelling. 



6. The effects produced by harmony and aversion (which 

 is the sixth method) are frequently buried in obscurity; for 

 these occult and specific properties (as they are termed), the 

 sympathies and antipathies, are for the most part but a 

 corruption of philosophy. Nor can we form any great 

 expectation of the discovery of the harmony which exists 

 between natural objects, before that of their forms and 



