NOVUM ORGANUM 403 



many senses in animals as there are points of agreement with in- 

 animate bodies, if the animated body were perforated, so as to 

 allow the spirit to have access to the limb properly disposed for 

 action, as a fit organ. And, on the other hand, there are, with- 

 out doubt, as many motions in an inanimate as there are senses 

 in the animated body, though the animal spirit be absent. 

 There must, however, be many more motions in inanimate 

 bodies than senses in the animated, from the small number of 

 organs of sense. A very plain example of this is afforded by 

 pains. For, as animals are liable to many kinds and various 

 descriptions of pains (such as those of burning, of intense cold, 

 of pricking, squeezing, stretching, and the like), so is it most 

 certain, that the same circumstances, as far as motion is con- 

 cerned, happen to inanimate bodies, such as wood or stone when 

 burnt, frozen, pricked, cut, bent, bruised, and the like ; although 

 there be no sensation, owing to the absence of animal spirit. 



Again, wonderful as it may appear, the roots and branches of 

 trees are similar instances. For every vegetable swells and 

 throws out its constituent parts towards the circumference, 

 both upwards and downwards. And there is no difference be- 

 tween the roots and branches, except that the root is buried in 

 the earth, and the branches are exposed to the air and sun. For 

 if one take a young and vigorous shoot, and bend it down to a 

 small portion of loose earth, although it be not fixed to the 

 ground, yet will it immediately produce a root, and not a 

 branch. And, vice versa, if earth be placed above, and so forced 

 down with a stone or any hard substance, as to confine the 

 plant and prevent its branching upwards, it will throw out 

 branches into the air downwards. 



The gum of trees, and most rock gems, are similar instances ; 

 for both of them are exudations and filtered juices, derived in 

 the former instance from trees, in the latter from stones ; the 

 brightness and clearness of both arising from a delicate and 

 accurate filtering. For nearly the same reason, the hair of ani- 

 mals is less beautiful and vivid in its color than the plumage 

 of most birds, because the juices are less delicately filtered 

 through the skin than through the quills. 



The scrotum of males and matrix of females are also similar 

 instances; so that the noble formation which constitutes the 

 difference of the sexes appears to differ only as to the one being 

 internal and the other external ; a greater degree of heat caus- 

 ing the genitals to protrude in the male, whilst the heat of the 

 female being too weak to effect this, they are retained inter- 

 nally. 



The fins of fishes and the feet of quadrupeds, or the feet and 

 wings of birds, are similar instances ; to which Aristotle adds 

 the four folds in the motion of serpents ; so that in the forma- 



