Jl6 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [VII. 5. 



his natural philosophy is infected. But if any man shall 

 keep a continual watchful and severe eye upon action, 

 operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise and 

 take notice what are the forms, the disclosures whereof 

 are fruitful and important to the state of man. For as 

 to the forms of substances (man only except, of whom it 

 is said, Formavit hommern de limo terra, et spiravit in 

 faciem ejus spiraculum vita, and not as of all other crea 

 tures, Producant aquce, producat terra], the forms of sub 

 stances I say (as they are now by compounding and 

 transplanting multiplied) are so perplexed, as they are not 

 to be inquired ; no more than it were either possible or 

 to purpose to seek in gross the forms of those sounds 

 which make words, which by composition and trans 

 position of letters are infinite. But on the other side 

 to inquire the form of those sounds or voices which make 

 simple letters is easily comprehensible ; and being known 

 induceth and manifesteth the forms of all words, which 

 consist and are compounded of them. In the same man 

 ner to inquire the form of a lion, of an oak, of gold ; nay, 

 of water, of air, is a vain pursuit : but to inquire the forms 

 of sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, 

 of gravity and levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of 

 cold, and all other natures and qualities, which, like an 

 alphabet, are not many, and of which the essences (up 

 held by matter) of all creatures do consist ; to inquire, I 

 say, the true forms of these, is that part of metaphysic 

 which we now define of. Not but that physic doth make 

 inquiry and take consideration of the same natures : but 

 how? Only as to the material and efficient causes of 

 them, and not as to the forms. For example, if the 

 cause of whiteness in snow or froth be inquired, and it 

 be rendered thus, that the subtile intermixture of air and 



