4-6.] NOTES. 75 



1. 19. man did give names, cf. p. 42, 1. 2. The argument is that 

 Adam knew the nature and properties of all creatures, because, 

 in the garden of Eden, he gave them names, and names express 

 the properties of the things named. Ellis quotes the same argu 

 ment from the writings of Thomas Aquinas. 



1. 21. proprieties, properties. 



1. 22. of good and evil, The tree of knowledge of good and 

 evil stood in the midst of the garden of Eden, and man was for 

 bidden to taste the fruit of it on pain of death. See p. 42. It 

 was the accepted doctrine of the Clmrch that Adam's sin arose 

 from pride. See Dante's Paradiso, vii. 25. Dante probably 

 took it from Thomas Aquinas. 



1. 27. extend, distend. 



1. 29. principal senses of inquisition, i.e., the senses which are 

 of most use to us in acquiring knowledge. Bacon means that the 

 senses supply the mind with the objects of thought : they are 

 * reporters to the mind.' Cf. " Our senses, conversant about par 

 ticular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct 

 perceptions of things, according to those various ways in which 

 those objects do effect them." Locke's Essay, bk. 2, ch. 1. The 

 objects of sight and hearing, colours and sounds, are those which 

 we first apprehend, and which are most frequently presented to 

 us. For the quotation, see Ecclesiast. i. 8. Bacon frequently 

 uses the word inquisition where we should use inquiry or in 

 vestigation. 



1. 32. the continent, that which contains. 



1. 35. ephemerides, a calendar. It is a Greek word exactly 

 equivalent to our ' diary,' from Latin dies, a day. The passage 

 to which Bacon alludes begins thus, "To everything there is a 

 season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven," Eccl. 3. 1. 



Page 6, 1. 2. decent, becoming, suitable, in the true return of 

 their seasons, i. e. , each at its proper time. The work which God 

 worketh from the beginning to the end. Bacon often uses this 

 phrase to denote the law on which the primary qualities of matter 

 ultimately depend. In all our inquiries we must start with 

 matter existing, and possessed of its primitive qualities. But on 

 what do these primary qualities depend? What is the law of 

 ' the force implanted by God in these first particles, from the 

 multiplication whereof all the variety of things proceeds and is 

 made up?' Here, as elsewhere, he leaves it doubtful whether 

 this question can ever be answered. Cf. Bk. 2, p. 44, and see On 

 Principles and Origins, Ellis and Spedding's edn., vol. 5, p. 461. 

 He calls this law ' the work which God worketh/row the beginning 

 to the end,' because the whole series of natural phenomena results 

 from it. 



1. 6. capable of, able to receive. 



