362 APPENDIX K. 



&c. (II. 17.1 Hence some liave been led to affirm tliat wherc- 

 evci 1 he writes &quot; Form&quot; \vo may read &quot; Law&quot; (in the modern 

 acceptation of that term); but this is scarce fair; as it seems 

 clear that Ity &quot; lex actus puri, &&amp;lt;.&quot; he really means far more 

 than would be meant now : and this is confirmed by his lan 

 guage respecting 0])tics in the l)e Augm. Scient. Bk. iv. where 

 he shews that he would never have regarded the Laws of Inci 

 dence and Reflection as Leges.&quot; or Forms. P&amp;gt;v &quot; Law of Na 

 ture ;&quot; \ve mean summary statements of the observed facts and 

 processes of Nature : but Bacon meant the inner life of things : 

 our Laws involve the notion of operation, movement, change; 

 his do not ; they arc rather the conditions of the existence of 

 kinds, and are irrespective of all production or process. So 

 that when Bacon writes (II. 17.) &quot; Itaque eadem res est/&amp;lt;;r//ur 

 ealidi, et fc.v calidi,&quot; or &quot; coire infonnam sive fe&amp;lt;/&amp;lt; i,&quot; we must 

 be cautious lest his language leads us to think that his Form 

 was equivalent to our Loir. \ am aware that in this I do not 

 agree with that great authority Dugald Stewart; in his Philo 

 sophy of the Human Mind, part II. chap. iv. sect. I. (note), he 

 expressly says, that in reading Bacon s philosophical works, 

 the word Lair may be substituted for Form, wherever it 

 may occur.&quot; 1 doubt not the substitution would make &amp;lt;rood 

 sense, would simplify matters, and relieve Bacon from a charge 



1 o 



of having clung to an impossible conception of the end of 

 Human Knowledge: but I doubt whether it would anv longer 



t 



represent Bacon s real meaning. And for this we may appeal to 

 his own words. &quot;Quod in Xatnra natnrata Ic.r. in Natura natu- 

 rante Idea dicitnr,&quot; he says in one place; a phrase which, stripped 

 of its scholastic dress, seems to mean that the real cause of any 

 class or kind, that which brings it to be what it is. is Idea or 



O 



Form, (in natnra naturante.) while Law is the expression of the 

 same thing after the process is completed (in natnra naturata). 

 &quot; Form&quot; or &quot; Idea&quot; looking at any class objectively, &quot; Law&quot; at 

 it subjectively: it maybe more than this ; but it cannot be less; 

 it is at any rate more than Lav in our present acceptation of 

 the Term. 



Having then laid it down that Form is not Law in our sense 

 of the Term, we may go on to ask, whether it is possible to 



