CCCCXX LIFE OF BACON. 



Although the History of Life and Death is apparently a 

 separate tract, it is the last portion of the third of the six 

 books into which the third part of the Instauration is 

 divided, (a) which are the histories of 



1st. The Winds. 



2nd. Density and Rarity. 



3rd. Heavy and Light. 



4th. Sympathy and Antipathy. 



5th. Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. 



6th. Life and Death. 



His reason for the publication of this tract, he thus 

 states : &quot; Although I had ranked the History of Life and 

 Death as the last among my six monthly designations; 

 yet I have thought fit, in respect of the prime use thereof, 

 in which the least loss of time ought to be esteemed 

 precious, to invert that order.&quot; 



The History, which was published in Latin, is inscribed 

 &quot; To the present age and posterity, in the hope and wish 

 that it may conduce to a common good, and that the 

 nobler sort of physicians will advance their thoughts, and 

 not employ their times wholly in the sordidness of cures, 

 neither be honoured for necessity only, but that they will 

 become coadjutors and instruments of the divine omnipo 

 tence and clemency in prolonging and renewing the life 

 of man, by safe, and convenient, and civil ways, though 

 hitherto unassayed.&quot; 



l t exist in every ubi, but in no place ? Bacon has uniformly passed them 

 over with silent contempt; and has probably contributed not less effectually 

 to bring them into general discredit, by this indirect intimation of his own 

 opinion, than if he had descended to the ungrateful task of exposing their 

 absurdity.&quot; 



(a) The two first, the Division of the Sciences and the Novum Organum, 

 have already been explained, ante, p. cxxxv and cclxvii. 



