NOVUM ORGANUM. 147 



them, for a body is not acted upon except by a body.* 

 In fact, this tendency to ascend and descend is either in the 

 conformation of the moving body, or in its harmony and 

 sympathy with another body. But if any dense and solid 

 body be found, which does not however tend towards the 

 earth, the classification is at an end. Now if we allow of 

 Gilbert s opinion, that the magnetic power of the earth, in 

 attracting heavy bodies, is not extended beyond the limit 

 of its peculiar virtue (which operates always at a fixed dis 

 tance and no further), f and this be proved by some instance, 

 such an instance will be one of alliance in our present subject. 

 The nearest approach to it is that of waterspouts, frequently 

 seen by persons navigating the Atlantic towards either of 

 the Indies. For the force and mass of the water sud 

 denly effused by waterspouts appears to be so considerable, 

 that the water must have been collected previously, and 

 have remained fixed where it was formed, until it was after 

 wards forced down by some violent cause, rather than made 

 to fall by the natural motion of gravity : so that it may be 

 conjectured, that a dense and compact mass, at a great 

 distance from the earth, may be suspended as the earth 

 itself is, and would not fall, unless forced down. We do 

 not, however, affirm this as certain. In the mean while, 

 both in this respect and many others, it will readily be seen 

 how deficient we are in natural history, since we are forced 

 to have recourse to suppositions for examples, instead of 

 ascertained instances. 



Again ; let the required nature be the discursive power 

 of the mind. The classification of human reason, and ani 

 mal instinct, appears \to be perfectly correct. Yet there are 

 some instances of the actions of brutes which seem to show 

 that they too can syllogize. Thus it is related, that a crow, 

 which had nearly perished from thirst in a great drought, 

 saw some water in the hollow trunk of a tree, but as it was 

 too narrow for him to get into it, he continued to throw 

 in pebbles, which made the water rise till he could drink, 

 and it afterwards became a proverb. 



Again ; let the required nature be vision. The classifi 

 cation appears real and certain, which considers light as 



* But see Bacon s own corollary at the end of the instances of divorce, 

 Aphorism 37. 



t Since Newton s discovery of the law of gravitation we find that the attrac 

 tive force of the earth must extend to an infinite distance. Bacon himself 

 alludes to the operation of this attractive force at great distances in the instances 

 of the rod, Aphorism 45. 



