BOOK 1LJ 



in&amp;lt;; the first qualities of essence to form--.&quot; For although nothing 

 exists in nature except individual bodies,* exhibiting clear indi 

 vidual effects according to particular laws, yet in each branch of 

 learning, that very la\v, its investigation* discovery, and develop 

 ment, are the foundation both ot* theory and practice. This law, 

 therefore, and its parallel in each science, is what we understand 

 by the term form,* adopting that word because it has grown into 

 common use, and is of familiar occurrence. 



c See Aphorism li. and second paragraph of Aphorism Ixv. in the 

 first book. 



a Bacon means, thrit although there exist in nature only individual 

 ities, yet a certain number of these may have common properties, and 

 be controlled by the same laws. Now, these homogeneous qualities 

 which distinguish them from other individuals, lead us to class them 

 under one expression, and sometimes under a single term. Yet these 

 classes are only pure conceptions in Bacon s opinion, and cannot be 

 taken for distinct substances. He evidently here aims a blow at the 

 Healists, who concluded that the essence which united individualities in 

 a class was th&amp;lt;; only real and immutable existence in nature, inasmuch 

 as it entered into their ideas of individual substances as a distinct and 

 essential property, and continued in the mind as the mould, type, or 

 pattern of the class, while its individual forms were undergoing per 

 petual renovation and decay. Ed. 



e Bacon s definition is obscure. All the idea we have of a law of 

 nature consists in invariable sequence between certain classes of 

 phenomena ; but this cannot be the complete sense attached by Bacon 

 to the term form, as he employs it in the fourth aphorism as convertible 

 with the nature of any object; and again in the first aphorism, 

 as the natura naturans, or general law or condition in any sub 

 stance or quality, natvra naturata which is whatever its form is, 

 or that particular combination of forces which impresses a certain 

 nature upon matter subject to its influence. Thus, in the Newtonian 

 lense, the form of whiteness would be that combination of the seven 

 primitive rays of light which give rise to that colour. In combination 

 with this word, and affording a still further insight into its meaning, we 

 have the phrases, latcns processes ad for mam, et latcns schematismus cor- 

 poi-um. Now, the latens sc/iematimmts signifies the internal texture, struc 

 ture, or configuration of bodies, or the result of the respective situation 

 oi all the parts o: a body ; while the latens proccssus ad formam points 

 out the gradation of movements which takes pi ice among the molecula 

 of bodies when they either conserve or change their figure. Hence we 

 may consider the form of any quality in body as something convertible 

 v ith that quality, i.e., when it exists the quality is present, and vice versa. 

 In this sense, the form of a thing differs only from its efficient cause in 

 being permanent, whereas we apply cause to that which exists in order 

 of time. The latens proccssns and latcns schematismus are subordinate 

 to form, as concrete exemplifications of its essence. The former is the 

 acret and invisible process by which change ;s effected, and involve* 



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