26 BACON 



leprosy, where it is said, " If the whiteness have overspread the 

 flesh, the patient may pass abroad for clean ; but if there be any 

 whole flesh remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean" y one 

 of them notes a principle of nature, viz., that putrefaction is 

 more contagious before maturity than after. Another hereupon 

 observes a position of moral philosophy, that men abandoned to 

 vice do not corrupt the manners of others, so much as those 

 who are but half wicked. And in many other places of the Jewish 

 law, besides the theological sense, there are couched many 

 philosophical matters. The book of Job s likewise will be 

 found, if examined with care, pregnant with the secrets of 

 natural philosophy. For example, when is says, " Qui extendit 

 Aquilonem super vacuum, et appendit terram super nihilum," 

 the suspension of the earth and the convexity of the heavens 

 are manifestly alluded to. Again, " Spiritus ejus ornavit caelos, 

 et obstetricante manu ejus eductus est coluber tortuosus;"a 

 and in another place, " Numquid conjungere valebis micantes 

 Stellas Pleiadas, aut gyrum Arcturi poteris dissipare ? "b where 

 the immutable configuration of the fixed stars, ever preserving 

 the same position, is with elegance described. So in another 

 place : " Qui facit Arcturum, et Oriona, et Hyadas/ et interiora 

 Austri,"d where he again refers to the depression of the south 

 pole in the expression of " Interiora Austri," because the 

 southern stars are not seen in our hemisphere. Again, what 

 concerns the generation of living creatures he says, " Annon 

 sicut lac mulsisti me, et sicut caseum coagulasti me ? "e and 

 touching mineral subjects, " Habet argentum venarum suarum 

 principia, et auro locus est, in quo conflatur ; ferrum de terra 

 tollitur, et lapis solutus calore in aes vertitur,"^ and so forward 

 in the same chapter. 



Nor did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our 

 Saviour, who himself first showed his power to subdue 

 ignorance, by conferring with the priests and doctors of the 

 law, before he showed his power to subdue nature by miracles. 

 And the coming of the Holy Spirit was chiefly expressed in the 

 gift of tongues, which are but the conveyance of knowledge. 



So in the election of those instruments it pleased God to use 

 for planting the faith, though at first he employed persons alto- 

 gether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration, the more 

 evidently to declare his immediate working, and to humble all 

 human wisdom or knowledge, yet in the next succession he 



