ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 143 



do not stamp and press their apples without laying them on 

 heaps for a time, to ripen by mutual contact, whereby the liquor 

 is prevented from being too tart. So the making of artificial 

 rainbows by the thick sprinkling of little drops of water, is an 

 easy translation from natural rainbows made in a rainy cloud. 

 So the art of distillation might be taken either from the falling 

 of rain and dew, or that homely experiment of boiling water, 

 where drops adhere to the cover of the vessel. Mankind might 

 have been afraid to imitate thunder and lightning by the inven- 

 tion of great guns, had not the chemical monk received the first 

 hint of it by the impetuous discharge and loud report of the 

 cover of his vessel. But if mankind were desirous to search 

 after useful things, they ought attentively, minutely, and on set 

 purpose, to view the workmanship and particular operations of 

 nature, and be continually examining and casting about which 

 of them may be transferred to arts ; for nature is the mirror of 

 art. 



Nor are there fewer experiments transferable from one art 

 or practise to another, though this be rarely used. For nature 

 lies everywhere obvious to us all, though particular arts are 

 only known to particular artists. Spectacles were invented for 

 weak sights might not, therefore, an instrument be dis- 

 covered that, applied to the ears, should help the hearing? 

 Embalming preserves dead bodies could not, therefore, some- 

 thing of like kind be transferred to medicine, for the preserva- 

 tion of live ones ? So the practice of sealing in wax, cements, 

 and lead, is ancient, and paved the way to the printing on paper, 

 or the art of the press. So in cookery, salt preserves meats bet- 

 ter in winter than in summer might not this be usefully trans- 

 ferred to baths, and the occasional regulation of their tempera- 

 tures ? So by late experience salt is found of great efficacy in 

 condensing, by the way of artificial freezing might not this 

 be transferred to the condensing of metals, since it is found that 

 the aqua-fortis, composed of salts, dissolve particles of gold 

 out of some lighter metals? So painting refreshes the mem- 

 ory by the image of a thing ; and is this not transferred in what 

 they call the art of memory? And let it be observed, in gen- 

 eral, that nothing is of greater efficacy in procuring a stock of 

 new and useful inventions, than to have the experiments of 

 numerous mechanic arts known to a single person, or to a few, 

 who might mutually improve each other by conversation ; so 



