110 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



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, medi 

 cines, 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 knowledge 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 deriving 

 and deducing the operations themselves from meta- 

 physic, there are pertinent two points of much purpose, 

 /nmntarium the one bv wa y of Preparation, the other 

 opumhum- by way of caution. The first is, that 

 anarum. there be made a kalendar, resembling an 



inventory of the estate of man, containing all the 

 inventions (being the works or fruits of nature or 

 art) which are now extant, and whereof man is already 

 possessed ; out of which doth naturally result a note, 

 what things are yet held impossible, or not invented : 

 which kalendar will be the more artificial and service 

 able, if to every reputed impossibility you add what 

 thing is extant which cometh the nearest in degree to 

 that impossibility ; to the end that by these optatives 

 and potentials man s inquiry may be the more awake 

 in deducing direction of works from the speculation of 

 causes. And secondly, that those experiments be not 

 only esteemed which have an immediate and present 

 use, but those principally which are of most universal 

 consequence for invention of other experiments, and 

 those which give most light to the invention of causes. 



