400 BACON 



more readily dissolved, from the tendency to contact of the 

 water with the water, and the air with the air. These clandes- 

 tine instances (which are, as has been observed, of the most im- 

 portant service) are principally to be observed in small por- 

 tions of bodies, for the larger masses observe more universal 

 and general forms, as will be mentioned in its proper place. 



26. In the fifth rank of prerogative instances we will class 

 constitutive instances, which we are wont also to call collective 

 instances. They constitute a species or lesser form, as it were, 

 of the required nature. For since the real forms (which are 

 always convertible with the given nature) lie at some depth, 

 and are not easily discovered, the necessity of the case and the 

 infirmity of the human understanding require that the par- 

 ticular forms, which collect certain groups of instances (but by 

 no means all) into some common notion, should not be neg- 

 lected, but most diligently observed. For whatever unites 

 nature, even imperfectly, opens the way to the discovery of the 

 form. The instances, therefore, which are serviceable in this 

 respect are of no mean power, but endowed with some degree 

 of prerogative. 



Here, nevertheless, great care must be taken that, after the 

 discovery of several of these particular forms, and the establish- 

 ing of certain partitions or divisions of the required nature 

 derived from them, the human understanding do not at once 

 rest satisfied, without preparing for the investigation of the 

 great or leading form, and taking it for granted that nature is 

 compound and divided from its very root, despise and reject 

 any further union as a point of superfluous refinement, and 

 tending to mere abstraction. 



For instance, let the required nature be memory, or that 

 which excites and assists memory. The constitutive instances 

 are order or distribution, which manifestly assists memory; 

 topics or common-places in artificial memory, which may be 

 either places in their literal sense, as a gate, a corner, a window, 

 and the like, or familiar persons and marks, or anything else 

 (provided it be arranged in a determinate order), as animals, 

 plants, and words, letters, characters, historical persons, and 

 the like, of which, however, some are more convenient than 

 others. All these common-places materially assist memory, 

 and raise it far above its natural strength. Verse, too, is recol- 

 lected and learnt more easily than prose. From this group of 

 three instances order, the common-places of artificial memory, 

 and verses is constituted one species of aid for the memory, 

 which may be well termed a separation from infinity. For 

 when a man strives to recollect or recall anything to memory, 

 without a preconceived notion or perception of the object of 

 his search, he inquires about, and labors, and turns from 



