FALLACIES OF SIMPLE INSPECTION. 331 



end, as Bacon s physical inquiries did, in no result at all. 

 Was it that his eagerness to acquire the power of producing 

 for man s henefit effects of practical importance to human life, 

 rendering him impatient of pursuing that end by a circuitous 

 route, made even him, the champion of experiment, prefer the 

 direct mode, though one of mere observation, to the indirect, 

 in which alone experiment was possible ? Or had even Bacon 

 not entirely cleared his mind from the notion of the ancients, 

 that &quot;rerum cognoscere causas&quot; was the sole object of philo 

 sophy, and that to inquire into the effects of things belonged 

 to servile and mechanical arts ? 



It is worth remarking that, while the only efficient mode 

 of cultivating speculative science was missed from an undue 

 contempt of manual operations, the false speculative views thus 

 engendered gave in their turn a false direction to such prac 

 tical and mechanical aims as were suffered to exist. The 

 assumption universal among the ancients and in the middle 

 ages, that there were principles of heat and cold, dryness and 

 moisture, &c., led directly to a belief in alchemy; in a trans 

 mutation of substances, a change from one Kind into another. 

 Why should it not be possible to make gold ? Each of the 

 characteristic properties of gold has its forma, its essence, its 

 set of conditions, which if we could discover, and learn how to 

 realize, we could superinduce that particular property upon 

 any other substance, upon wood, or iron, or lime, or clay. If, 

 then, we could effect this with respect to every one of the 

 essential properties of the precious metal, we should have 

 converted the other substance into gold. Nor did this, if 

 once the premises were granted, appear to transcend the real 

 powers of mankind. For daily experience showed that 

 almost every one of the distinctive sensible properties of any 

 object, its consistence, its colour, its taste, its smell, its shape, 

 admitted of being totally changed by fire, or water, or some 

 other chemical agent. The formce of all those qualities 

 seeming, therefore, to be within human power either to pro 

 duce or to annihilate, not only did the transmutation of sub 

 stances appear abstractedly possible, but the employment of 



