210 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



the Magical instances, a term which we apply to those where 

 the matter or efficient agent is scanty or small, in comparison 

 with the grandeur of the work or effect produced ; so that 

 even when common they appear miraculous, some at first 

 sight, others even upon more attentive observation. Nature, 

 however, of herself supplies these but sparingly. What 

 she will do when her whole store is thrown open, and after 

 the discovery of forms, processes, and conformation, will 

 appear hereafter. As far as we can yet conjecture, these 

 magic effects are produced in three ways, either by self- 

 multiplication, as in fire, and the poisons termed specific, 

 and the motions transferred and multiplied from wheel to 

 wheel; or by the excitement or, as it were, invitation of 

 another substance, as in the magnet, which excites innume 

 rable needles without losing or diminishing its power, and 

 again in leaven, and the like ; or by the excess of rapidity 

 of one species of motion over another, as has been observed 

 in the case of gunpowder, cannon, and mines. The two 

 former require an investigation of harmonies, the latter of 

 a measure of motion. Whether there be any mode of 

 changing bodies per minima (as it is termed), and trans 

 ferring the delicate conformations of matter, which is of 

 importance in all transformations of bodies, so as to enable 

 art to effect in a short time that which nature works out by 

 divers expedients, is a point of which we have as yet no in 

 dication. But as we aspire to the extremest and highest 

 results in that which is solid and true, so do we ever detest 

 and, as far as in us lies, expel all that is empty and vain. 



52, Let this suffice as to the respective dignity or prero 

 gatives of instances. But it must be noted that in this our 

 organ, we treat of logic and not of philosophy. Seeing, 

 however, that our logic instructs and informs the under 

 standing, in order that it may not, with the small hooks, as 

 it were, of the mind, catch at and grasp mere abstractions, 

 but rather actually penetrate nature, and discover the pro 

 perties and effects of bodies, and the determinate laws of 

 their substance (so that this science of ours springs from 

 the nature of things as well as from that of the mind) ; it is 

 not to be wondered at if it have been continually in 

 terspersed and illustrated with natural observations and 

 experiments, as instances of our method. The preroga 

 tive instances are, as appears from what has preceded, 

 twenty-seven in number, and are termed, solitary instances, 

 migrating instances, conspicuous instances, clandestine in 

 stances, constitutive instances, similar instances, singular 



