NOVUM ORGANUM 399 



in drops, the thread of water recoils upwards to avoid such a 

 breach. Nay, in metals, which when melted are liquid but more 

 tenacious, the melted drops often recoil and are suspended. 

 There is somethinig similar in the instance of the child's look- 

 ing-glass, which little boys will sometimes form of spittle be- 

 tween rushes, and where the same pellicle of water is observ- 

 able ; and still more in that other amusement of children, when 

 they take some water rendered a little more tenacious by soap, 

 and inflate it with a pipe, forming the water into a sort of castle 

 of bubbles, which assumes such consistency, by the interposi- 

 tion of the air, as to admit of being thrown some little distance 

 without bursting. The best example is that of froth and snow, 

 which assume such consistency as almost to admit of being 

 cut, although composed of air and water, both liquids. All 

 these circumstances clearly show that the terms liquid and 

 consistent are merely vulgar notions adapted to the sense, and 

 that in reality all bodies have a tendency to avoid a breach of 

 continuity, faint and weak in bodies composed of homogeneous 

 parts (as is the case with liquids), but more vivid and powerful 

 in those composed of heterogeneous parts, because the ap- 

 proach of heterogeneous matter binds bodies together, whilst 

 the insinuation of homogeneous matter loosens and relaxes 

 them. 



Again, to take another example, let the required nature be 

 attraction or the cohesion of bodies. The most remarkable con- 

 spicuous instance with regard to its form is the magnet. The 

 contrary nature to attraction is non-attraction, though in a 

 similar substance. Thus iron does not attract iron, lead lead, 

 wood wood, nor water water. But the clandestine instance is 

 that of the magnet armed with iron, or rather that of iron in the 

 magnet so armed. For its nature is such that the magnet when 

 armed does not attract iron more powerfully at any given dis- 

 tance than when unarmed ; but if the iron be brought in con- 

 tact with the armed magnet, the latter will sustain a much 

 greater weight than the simple magnet, from the resemblance 

 of substance in the two portions of iron, a quality altogether 

 clandestine and hidden in the iron until the magnet was in- 

 troduced. It is manifest, therefore, that the form of cohesion 

 is something which is vivid and robust in the magnet, and 

 hidden and weak in the iron. It is to be observed, also, that 

 small wooden arrows without an iron point, when discharged 

 from large mortars, penetrate farther into wooden substances 

 (such as the ribs of ships or the like), than the same arrows 

 pointed with iron, owing to the similarity of substance, though 

 this quality was previously latent in the wood. Again, although 

 in the mass air does not appear to attract air, nor water water, 

 yet when one bubble is brought near another, they are both 



