136 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



parts are the lowest, not including the extremities of the 

 legs and arms. But in the plant the root (which resembles 

 the head) is regularly placed in the lowest, and the seeds 

 in the highest part. 



Lastly, we must particularly recommend and suggest, that 

 man s present industry in the investigation and compilation 

 of natural history be entirely changed, and directed to the 

 reverse of the present system. For it has hitherto been 

 active and curious in noting the variety of things, and ex 

 plaining the accurate differences of animals, vegetables, and 

 minerals, most of which are the mere sport of nature, rather 

 than of any real utility as concerns the sciences. Pursuits 

 of this nature are certainly agreeable, and sometimes of 

 practical advantage, but contribute little or nothing to the 

 thorough investigation of nature. Our labour must, there 

 fore, be directed towards inquiring into and observing resem 

 blances and analogies, both in the whole, and its parts, for 

 they unite nature, and lay the foundation of the sciences. 



Here, however, a severe and rigorous caution must be 

 observed, that we only consider as similar and proportionate 

 instances, those which (as we first observed), point out 

 physical resemblances : that is, real and substantial resem 

 blances, deeply founded in nature, and not casual and su 

 perficial, much less superstitious or curious ; such as those 

 which are constantly put forward by the writers on natural 

 magic (the most idle of men, and who are scarcely fit to be 

 named in connexion with such serious matters as we now 

 treat of), who, with much vanity and folly, describe, and 

 sometimes too invent, unmeaning resemblances and sym 

 pathies. 



But leaving such to themselves, similar instances are not 

 to be neglected, in the greater portions of the world s confor 

 mation ; such as Africa and the Peruvian continent, which 

 reaches to the Straits of Magellan ; both of which possess a 

 similar isthmus and similar capes, a circumstance not to be 

 attributed to mere accident. 



Ag-ain ; the New and Old World are both of them broad 

 and expanded towards the north, and narrow and pointed 

 towards the south. 



Again ; we have very remarkable similar instances in the 

 intense cold, towards the middle regions (as it is termed) 

 of the air, and the violent fires which are often found to 

 burst from subterraneous spots, the similarity consisting in 

 both being ends and extremes ; the extreme of the nature 



