NOVUM ORGANUM. 203 



restrain their violent and perturbed motion. Rosewater, 

 for instance, applied to the nostrils in fainting fits, causes 

 the resolved and relaxed spirits to recover themselves, and, 

 as it were, cherishes them. But opiates, and the like, 

 banish the spirits by their malignant and hostile quality. 

 If they be applied, therefore, externally, the spirits im 

 mediately quit the part and no longer readily flow into it ; 

 but if they be taken internally, their vapour, mounting to 

 the head, expels, in all directions, the spirits contained in 

 the ventricles of the brain, and since these spirits retreat, 

 but cannot escape, they consequently meet and are con 

 densed, and are sometimes completely extinguished and 

 suffocated ; although the same opiates, when taken in mo 

 deration, by a secondary accident (the condensation which 

 succeeds their union), strengthen the spirits, render them 

 more robust, and check their useless and inflammatory 

 motion, by which means they contribute not a little to the 

 cure of diseases, and the prolongation of life. 



The preparations of bodies, also, for the reception of cold 

 should not be omitted, such as that water a little warmed 

 is more easily frozen than that which is quite cold, and 

 the like. 



Moreover, since nature supplies cold so sparingly, we 

 must act like the apothecaries, who, when they cannot ob 

 tain any simple ingredient, take a succedaneum, or quid 

 pro quo, as they term it, such as aloes for xylobalsamum, 

 cassia for cinnamon. In the same manner we should look 

 diligently about us, to ascertain whether there may be any 

 substitutes for cold, that is to say, in what other manner con 

 densation can be effected, which is the peculiar operation 

 of cold. Such condensations appear hitherto to be of four 

 kinds only. 1. By simple compression, which is of little 

 avail towards permanent condensation, on account of the 

 elasticity of substances, but may still however be of some 

 assistance. 2. By the contraction of the coarser, after the 

 escape or departure of the finer parts of a given body ; as 

 is exemplified in induration by fire, and the repeated heating 

 and extinguishing of metals, and the like. 3. By the 

 cohesion of the most solid homogeneous parts of a given 

 body, which were previously separated, and mixed with 

 others less solid, as in the return of sublimated mercury to 

 its simple state, in which it occupies much less space than 

 it did in powder, and the same may be observed of the 

 cleansing of all metals from their dross. 4. By harmony 

 or the application of substances which condense by some 



