NOVUM ORGANUM. 97 



similar parts of plants and animals, as the root, the leaf, 

 the flower, the flesh, the blood, and bones, &c. Yet human 

 industry has not completely neglected this species of ana 

 tomy : for we have an instance of it in the separation of 

 similar bodies by distillation, and other solutions, which 

 shows the dissimilarity of the compound by the union of 

 the homogeneous parts. These* methods are useful, and of 

 importance to our inquiry, although attended generally 

 with fallacy : for many natures are assigned and attributed 

 to the separate bodies, as if they had previously existed in 

 the compound, which in reality are recently bestowed and 

 superinduced by fire and heat and the other modes of 

 separation. Besides it is, after all, but a small part of the 

 labour of discovering the real conformation in the compound, 

 which is so subtile and nice, that it is rather confused and 

 lost by the operation of the fire, than discovered and brought 

 to light. 



A separation and solution of bodies, therefore, is to be 

 effected, not by fire indeed, but rather by reasoning and 

 true induction, with the assistance of experiment, and by 

 a comparison with other bodies, and a reduction to those 

 simple natures and their forms, which meet and are com 

 bined in the compound ; and we must assuredly pass from 

 Vulcan to Minerva, if we wish to bring to light the real 

 texture and conformation of bodies, upon which every occult 

 and (as it is sometimes called) specific property and virtue 

 of things depends, and whence also every rule of powerful 

 change and transformation is deduced. 



For instance, we must examine what spirit is in every 

 body, what tangible essence ; whether that spirit is copious 

 and exuberant, or meagre and scarce, fine or coarse, aeriform 

 or igniform, active or sluggish, weak or robust, progressive 

 or retrograde, abrupt or continuous, agreeing with external 

 and surrounding objects, or differing from them, &c. In 

 like manner must we treat tangible essence (which admits 

 of as many distinctions as the spirit), and its hairs, fibres, 

 and varied texture. Again, the situation of the spirit in 

 the corporeal mass, its pores, passages, veins, and cells, and 

 the rudiments or first essays of the organic body are sub 

 ject to the same examination. In these, however, as in our 

 former inquiries, and therefore in the whole investigation 

 of latent conformation, the only genuine and clear light 

 which completely dispels all darkness and subtile difficul 

 ties, is admitted by means of the primary axioms. 



VOL. XIV. H 



