282 PREFACE TO THE 



work itself was to have concluded with an exhortation 

 &quot;ad viros dignitate doctrinaque egregios de humanS 

 felicitate exiguo tempore, si velimus modo, in immen- 

 sum augendaX&quot; 



Another of these fragments contains some account of 

 himself, or rather of Wilhelmus Pacidius, in which he 

 mentions it as one of the happy incidents of his youth, 

 that when he had perceived the defects of the scholas 

 tic philosophy the writings of several of the reformers 

 came into his hands among which he gives the first 

 place to the &quot; consilia magni viri Francisci Baconi 

 Angliae Cancellarii de augmentis Scientiarum.&quot; : 



To return to the fable of Cupid. After interpreting 

 the statement that all things come from Eros to mean 

 that all phenomena must be referred to the funda 

 mental and originally inherent properties of matter as 

 the first ground of their production, Bacon goes on to 

 say that next to the error of those who make formless 

 matter an original principle, is the error of ascribing 

 secondary qualities to primitive matter. This he ex 

 presses by saying that though Eros is endued with per 

 sonality, he is nevertheless naked, &quot; ita personatus 3 ut 

 sit tamen nudus.&quot; Those who have committed the 

 error of clothing him have either merely covered him 

 with a veil, or have dressed him up in a tunic, or 

 lastly have wrapped him round with a cloak. 



These three errors are respectively the errors of 

 those who have sought to explain everything by the 

 transformations of one element as air or fire, of those 

 who assume a plurality of elements, and of those Avho 



1 Leibnitz, ab Erd. p. 89. 2 Ibid. p. 91. 



8 The meaning of personatus appears from the phrase Bacon previously 

 uses: &quot; Cupidinis est persona qusedam. 1 



