KOVUM OHGANUM. [BOOK it. 



III. He who has learnt tlie cause of a particular nature (such 

 AS whiteness or heat), in particular subjects only, has acquired 

 but an imperfect knowledge : as he vho can induce a certain 

 effect upon particular substances only, among those which are 

 susceptible of it, has acquired but an imperfect power. But he 

 who has only learnt the efficient and material cause (which 

 causes are variable and mere vehicles conveying form to parti 

 cular substances) may perhaps arrive at some new discoveries in, 

 matters of a similar nature, and prepared for the purpose, but 

 does not stir the limits of things which are much more deeply 

 rooted: whilst he who is acquainted with forms, comprehends 

 the unity of nature in substances apparently most distinct from 

 each other. He can disclose and bring forward, therefore, 

 (though it has never yet been done) things which neither the 

 vicissitudes of nature, nor the industry of experiment, nor chance 

 itself, would ever have brought about, and which would for ever 

 have escaped man s thoughts ; from the discovery of forms, 

 therefore, results genuine theory and free practice. 



IV. Although there is a most intimate connection, and almost 

 an identity between the ways of human power and human 

 knowledge, yet, on account of the pernicious and inveterate habit 

 of dwelling upon abstractions, it is by far the safest method to 

 commence and build up the sciences from those ioundations 

 which bear a relation to the practical division, and to let them 

 mark out and limit the theoretical. We must consider, there 

 fore, what precepts, or what direction or guide, a person would 

 most desire, in order to generate and superinduce any nature 

 upon a given body : and this not in abstruse, but in the plainest 

 language. 



For instance, if a person should wish to superinduce the yellow 

 colour of gold upon silver, or an additional weight (observing 

 always the laws of matter) or transparency on an opaque stone, 

 or tenacity in glass, or vegetation on a substance which is not 



the principle since called the law of continY.ty. Thus, the succession 

 of events between the application of the match to the expulsion of the 

 bullet is an instant of latent progress which we can now trace with 

 some degree of accuracy. It also more directly reiers to the operation 

 by which one form or condition of being is induced upon another. I o* 

 example, when the surface of iron becomes rusty, or when water is con 

 verted into steam, some change has taken place, or latent process from 

 one form to another. Mechanics afford many exemplifications ot the 

 first latent process we have denoted, and chemistry of the second. 

 The latens schematisnius is that visible structure of bodies on which SD 

 many of their properties depend. When we inquire into the consti 

 tution of crystals, and into the nternal structure of plants, we are 

 examining into their latent schematism. Ed, 



