NOVUM ORGANUAf. 95 



whole successive motion, and varied and uninterrupted 

 efforts of nature ; and the same inquiry be made as to a 

 regularly deduced system of the generation of animals from 

 coition to birth, and so on of other bodies. 



Nor is this species of inquiry confined to the mere gene 

 ration of bodies, but it is applicable to other changes and 

 labours of nature. For instance ; where an inquiry is made 

 into the whole series and continued operation of the nutri 

 tive process, from the first reception of the food to its com 

 plete assimilation to the recipient: or into the voluntary 

 motion of animals, from the first impression of the imagi 

 nation, and the continuous effects of the spirits, up to the 

 bending and motion of the joints; or into the free motion 

 of the tongue and lips, and other accessories which give 

 utterance to articulate sounds. For all these investigations 

 relate to concrete or associated natures artificially brought 

 together, and take into consideration certain particular and 

 special habits of nature, and not those fundamental and 

 general laws which constitute forms. It must, however, be 

 plainly owned, that this method appears more prompt and 

 easy, and of greater promise than the primary one. 



In like manner the operative branch, which answers to 

 this contemplative branch, extends and advances its opera 

 tion from that which is usually observed in nature, to other 

 subjects immediately connected with it, or not very remote 

 from such immediate connexion. But the higher and ra 

 dical operations upon nature depend entirely on the primary 

 axioms. Besides, even where man has not the means of 

 acting, but only of acquiring knowledge, as in astronomy 

 (for man cannot act upon change or transform the heavenly 

 bodies), the investigation of facts or truth, as well as the 

 knowledge of causes and coincidences, must be referred to 

 those primary and universal axioms that regard simple 

 natures; such as the nature of spontaneous rotation, at 

 traction, or the magnetic force, and many others which 

 are more common than the heavenly bodies themselves. 

 For let no one hope to determine the question whether 

 the earth or heaven revolve in the diurnal motion, unless 

 he have first comprehended the nature of spontaneous 

 rotation. 



6. But the latent process, of which we speak, is far from 

 being obvious to men s minds, beset as they now are. For 

 we mean not the measures, symptoms, or degrees of any 

 process which can be exhibited in the bodies themselves, 



