3?0 BACON 



of the precept he will be deprived of reaping any advantage 

 from them ; thirdly, he will be anxious to be shown something 

 not so difficult as the required effect itself, but approaching 

 more nearly to practice. 



We will lay this down, therefore, as the genuine and perfect 

 rule of practice, that it should be certain, free, and preparatory, 

 or having relation to practice. And this is the same thing as 

 the discovery of a true form; for the form of any nature is 

 such, that when it is assigned the particular nature infallibly 

 follows. It is, therefore, always present when that nature is 

 present, and universally attests such presence, and is inherent 

 in the whole of it. The same form is of such a character, that if 

 it be removed the particular nature infallibly vanishes. It is, 

 therefore, absent, whenever that nature is absent, and perpetu- 

 ally testifies such absence, and exists in no other nature. Lastly, 

 the true form is such, that it deduces the particular nature from 

 some source of essence existing in many subjects, and more 

 known (as they term it) to nature, than the form itself. Such, 

 then, is our determination and rule with regard to a genuine and 

 perfect theoretical axiom, that a nature be found convertible 

 with a given nature, and yet such as to limit the more known 

 nature, in the manner of a real genus. But these two rules, the 

 practical and theoretical, are in fact the same, and that which 

 is most useful in practice is most correct in theory. 



5. But the rule or axiom for the transformation of bodies is 

 of two kinds. The first regards the body as an aggregate or 

 combination of simple natures. Thus, in gold are united the 

 following circumstances : it is yellow, heavy, of a certain weight, 

 malleable and ductile to a certain extent ; it is not volatile, loses 

 part of its substance by fire, melts in a particular manner, is 

 separated and dissolved by particular methods, and so of the 

 other natures observable in gold. An axiom, therefore, of this 

 kind deduces the subject from the forms of simple natures ; for 

 he who has acquired the forms and methods of superinducing 

 yellowness, weight, ductility, stability, deliquescence, solution, 

 and the like, and their degrees and modes, will consider and 

 contrive how to unite them in any body, so as to transform it 

 into gold. And this method of operating belongs to primary 

 action ; for it is the same thing to produce one or many simple 

 natures, except that man is more confined and restricted in his 

 operations, if many be required, on account of the difficulty of 

 uniting many natures together. It must, however, be observed, 

 that this method of operating (which considers natures as sim- 

 ple though in a concrete body) sets out from what is constant, 

 eternal, and universal in nature, and opens such broad paths to 

 human power, as the thoughts of man can in the present state of 

 things scarcely comprehend or figure to itself. 



