NOVUM ORGANUM 177 



Pursuits of this nature are certainly agreeable, and some 

 times of practical advantage, but contribute little or nothing 

 to the thorough investigation of nature. Our labor must 

 therefore be directed toward inquiring into and observing 

 resemblances and analogies, both in the whole and its parts, 

 for they unite nature, and lay the foundation of the sciences. 



Here, however, a severe and rigorous caution must be 

 observed, that we only consider as similar and proportionate 

 instances, those which (as we first observed) point out 

 physical resemblances; that is, real and substantial resem 

 blances, deeply founded in nature, and not casual and 

 superficial, much less superstitious or curious; such as 

 those which are constantly put forward by the writers on 

 natural magic (the most idle of men, and who are scarcely 

 fit to be named in connection with such serious matters as 

 we now treat of), who, with much vanity and folly, describe, 

 and sometimes too, invent, unmeaning resemblances and 

 sympathies. 



But leaving such to themselves, similar instances are 

 not to be neglected, in the greater portions of the world s 

 conformation; such as Africa and the Peruvian continent, 

 which reaches to the Straits of Magellan; both of which 

 possess a similar isthmus and similar capes, a circumstance 

 not to be attributed to mere accident. 



Again, the New and Old World are both of them broad 

 and expanded toward the north, and narrow and pointed 

 toward the south. 



Again, we have very remarkable similar instances in the 

 intense cold, toward the middle regions (as it is termed) of 

 the air, and the violent fires which are often found to burst 

 from subterraneous spots, the similarity consisting in both 

 being ends and extremes; the extreme of the nature of cold, 



