192 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



appears to be continued for a considerable time, and one 

 might easily be led into the mistake of supposing it to 

 float and remain in the air during the whole time, which is 

 most erroneous. For the reverberation is not one identical 

 sound, but the repetition of sounds ; which is made mani 

 fest by stopping and confining the sonorous body; thus, if 

 a bell be stopped and held tightly, so as to be immovable, 

 the sound fails, and there is no further reverberation, and if 

 a musical string be touched after the first vibration, either 

 with the finger (as in the harp), or a quill (as in the harp 

 sichord), the sound immediately ceases. If the magnet be 

 removed the iron falls. The moon, however, cannot be re 

 moved from the sea, nor the earth from a heavy falling 

 body, and we can, therefore, make no experiment upon 

 them, but the case is the same. 



Let the fourteenth motion be that of configuration or 

 position, by which bodies appear to desire a peculiar situa 

 tion, collocation, and configuration with others, rather than 

 union or separation. This is a very abstruse motion, and 

 has not been well investigated ; and, in some instances, 

 appears to occur almost without any cause, although we 

 be mistaken in supposing this to be really the case. 

 For if it be asked, why the heavens revolve from east to 

 west, rather than from west to east, or why they turn on 

 poles situate near the Bears, rather than round Orion or any 

 other part of the heaven, such a question appears to be un 

 reasonable, since these phenomena should be received as 

 determinate and the objects of our experience. There are, 

 indeed, some ultimate and self-existing phenomena in na 

 ture, but those which we have just mentioned are not to be 

 referred to that class : for we attribute them to a certain har 

 mony and consent of the universe, which has not yet been 

 properly observed. But if the motion of the earth from 

 west to east be allowed, the same question may be put, for 

 it must also revolve round certain poles, and why should 

 they be placed where they are, rather than elsewhere? 

 The polarity and variation of the needle come under our 

 present head. There is also observed in both natural and 

 artificial bodies, especially solids rather than fluids, a par 

 ticular collocation and position of parts, resembling hairs 

 or fibres, which should be diligently investigated, since, 

 without a discovery of them, bodies cannot be conveniently 

 controlled or wrought upon. The eddies observable in 

 liquids by which, when compressed, they successively raise 

 different parts of their mass before they can escape, so as 



