NOVUM ORGANUM 117 



ized bodies. It is obvious, and of ready access, when com 

 pared with the real anatomy of latent conformation in bodies 

 which are considered similar, particularly in specific objects 

 and their parts; as those of iron, stone, and the similar parts 

 of plants and animals, as the root, the leaf, the flower, the 

 flesh, the blood, and bones, etc. Yet human industry has 

 not completely neglected this species of anatomy; for we 

 have an instance of it in the separation of similar bodies by 

 distillation, and other solutions, which shows the dissimi 

 larity of the compound by the union of the homogeneous 

 parts. These methods are useful, and of importance to our 

 inquiry, although attended generally with fallacy: for many 

 natures are assigned and attributed to the separate bodies, 

 as if they had previously existed in the compound, which, 

 in reality, are recently bestowed and superinduced by fire 

 and heat, and the other modes of separation. Besides, it is, 

 after all, but a small part of the labor of discovering the real 

 conformation in the compound, which is so subtile and nice, 

 that it is rather confused and lost by the operation of the 

 fire, than discovered and brought to light. 



A separation and solution of bodies, therefore, is to be 

 effected, not by fire indeed, but rather by reasoning and true 

 induction, with the assistance of experiment, and by a com 

 parison with other bodies, and a reduction to those simple 

 natures and their forms which meet, and are combined in 

 the compound; and we must assuredly pass from Vulcan to 

 Minerva, if we wish to bring to light the real texture and 

 conformation of bodies, upon which every occult and (as it 

 is sometimes called) specific property and virtue of things 

 depends, and whence also every rule of powerful change and 

 transformation is deduced. 



For instance, we must examine what spirit is in every 



