232. NOVUM ORGANUM 



in the percussion of bodies, where the one does not remove 

 the other, unless the impelling touch the impelled body. 

 External applications in medicine, as ointment and plasters, 

 do not exercise their efficacy except when in contact with 

 the body. Lastly, the objects of touch and taste only strike 

 those senses when in contact with their organs. 



Other powers act at a distance, though it be very small, 

 of which but few liave as yet been noted, although there 

 be more than men suspect; this happens (to take everyday 

 instances) when amber or jet attracts straws, bubbles dis 

 solve bubbles, some purgative medicines draw humors from 

 above, and the like. The magnetic power by which iron 

 and the magnet, or two magnets, are attracted together, 

 acts within a definite and narrow sphere, but if there be 

 any magnetic power emanating from the earth a little below 

 its surface, and affecting the needle in its polarity, it must 

 act at a great distance. 



Again, if there be any magnetic force which acts by sym 

 pathy between the globe of the earth and heavy bodies, or 

 between that of the moon and the waters of the sea (as seems 

 most probable from the particular floods and ebbs which 

 occur twice in the month), or between the starry sphere and 

 the planets, by which they are summoned and raised to 

 their apogees, these must all operate at very great dis 

 tances. 74 



74 Observe the approximation to Newton s theory. The same notion re 

 peated still more clearly in the ninth motion. Newton believed that the 

 planets might so conspire as to derange the earth s annual revolution, and to 

 elongate the line of the apsides and ellipsis that the eartli describes in its an 

 nual revolution round the sun. In the supposition that all the planets meet 

 on the same straight line, Venus and Mercury on one side of the sun, and the 

 earth, moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn on the side diametrically opposite; then 

 Saturn would attract Jupiter, Jupiter Mars, Mars the moon, which must in its 



