504 OHGANUM. [ROOK 1L 



any further, by the slight resistance it meets with in the water, 

 which docs not allow an immediate separation of its parts, so 

 that the tendency oi the air to rise must be very slight. 



Again, let the required nature be weight. It is certainly a 

 received, classification, that dense and solid bodies are borne to 

 wards the centre of the earth, and rare and light bodies to the 

 circumference of the heavens, as their appropriate places. As 

 far as relates to places (though these things have much weight in 

 the schools), the notion of there being any determinate place is 

 absurd and puerile. Philosophers trifle, therefore, when they 

 tell you, that if the earth were perforated, heavy bodies would 

 stop on their arrival at the centre. This centre would indeed be 

 an efficacious nothing, or mathematical point, could it affect 

 bodies or be sought by them, for a body is not acted upon except 

 by a body. k In fact, this tendency to ascend and descend ia 

 either in the conformation of the moving br-dy, or in its harmony 

 and sympathy with another body. But if any dense and solid 

 body be found, which does not, however, tend towards the earth, 

 the classification is at an end. Now, if we allow of Gilbert s 

 opinion, that the magnetic power of the earth, in attracting 

 heavy bodies, is not extended beyond the limit of its peculiar 

 virtue (which operates always at a fixed distance and no further), 1 

 and this be proved by some instance, such an instance will be 

 one of alliance in our present subject. The nearest approach to 

 it is that of waterspouts, frequently seen by persons navigating 

 the Atlantic towards either of the Indies. For the force and 

 mass of the water suddenly effused by waterspouts, appears to 

 be so considerable, that the water must have been collected pre 

 viously, and have remained fixed where it was formed, until it 

 was afterwards forced down by some violent cause, rather than 

 made to fall by the natural motion of gravity - so that it may be 

 conjectured that a dense and compact mass, at a great distance 

 from the earth, may be suspended as the earth itself is. and would 

 not fall, unless forced down. We do not, however, affirm this as 



k But see Bacon s own corollary at the end oi the Instances of 

 Divorce, Aphorism xxxvii. If Bacon s remark be accepted, the censure 

 will fall upon Newton and the system so generally received at the 

 present day. It is, however, unjust, as the centre of which Newton so 

 often speaks is not a point with an active inherent lorce. but only the 

 result of all the particular and reciprocal attractions o. the different 

 parts oi the planet acting upon one spot. It ia evident, that ii all these 

 forces were united in this centre, that the sum would be equal to all 

 their partial effects. Ed. 



1 Since Newton s discovery of the law of gravitation, we find that 

 the attractive force ot the earth must extend to an infinite distance. 

 Bacon himself alludes to the operation of this attractive fore* at great 

 distances in the Instances of the Rod, Aphorism xlv. 



