124 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [VIII. 3. 



note in these sciences which hold so much of imagination 

 and belief, as this degenerate natural magic, alchemy, 

 astrology, and the like, that in their propositions the de 

 scription of the means is ever more monstrous than the 

 pretence or end. For it is a thing more probable, that 

 he that knoweth well the natures of weight, of colour, of 

 pliant and fragile in respect of the hammer, of volatile and 

 fixed in respect of the fire, and the rest, may superinduce 

 upon some metal the nature and form of gold by such 

 mechanique as longeth to the production of the natures 

 afore rehearsed, than that some grains of the medicine 

 projected should in a few moments of time turn a sea 

 of quicksilver or other material into gold. So it is more 

 probable that he that knoweth the nature of arefaction, 

 the nature of assimilation of nourishment to the thing 

 nourished, the manner of increase and clearing of spirits, 

 the manner of the depredations which spirits make upon 

 the humours and solid parts, shall by ambages of diets, 

 bathings, anointings, medicines, motions, and the like, 

 prolong life, or restore some degree of youth or vivacity, 

 than that it can be done with the use of a few drops or 

 scruples of a liquor or receipt. To conclude therefore, 

 the true natural magic, which is that great liberty and 

 latitude of operation which dependeth upon the know 

 ledge of forms, I may report deficient, as the relative 

 thereof is. To which part, if we be serious and incline 

 not to vanities and plausible discourse, besides the deriv 

 ing and deducing the operations themselves from meta- 

 physic, there are pertinent two points of much purpose, 

 Inventarinm the one by way of preparation, the other by 

 opum hum- way of caution. The first is, that there be 

 anarum. mac j e a kalendar, resembling an inventory of 

 the estate of man, containing all the inventions (being 



