460 BACON 



by the small pores. Men are led into this idea by the common 

 experiments of a cup inverted over water, with a candle or 

 piece of lighted paper in it, by which the water is drawn up, and 

 of those cups which, when heated, draw up the flesh. For they 

 think that in each experiment the rarefied air escapes, and that 

 its quantity is therefore diminished, by which means the water 

 or flesh rises by the motion of connection. This is, however, 

 most incorrect. For the air is not diminished in quantity, but 

 contracted in dimensions, nor does this motion of the rising of 

 the water begin till the flame is extinguished, or the air cooled, 

 so that physicians place cold sponges, moistened with water, on 

 the cups, in order to increase their attraction. There is, there- 

 fore, no reason why men should fear much from the ready es- 

 cape of air: for although it be true that the most solid bodies 

 have their pores, yet neither air, nor spirit, readily suffers itself 

 to be rarefied to such an extreme degree ; just as water will not 

 escape by a small chink. 



II. With regard to the second of the seven above-mentioned 

 methods, we must especially observe, that compression and sim- 

 ilar violence have a most powerful effect either in producing 

 locomotion, and other motions of the same nature, as may be 

 observed in engines and projectiles, or in destroying the organic 

 body, and those qualities, which consist entirely in motion (for 

 all life, and every description of flame and ignition are destroyed 

 by compression, which also injures and deranges every ma- 

 chine) ; or in destroying those qualities which consist in posi- 

 tion and a coarse difference of parts, as in colors ; for the color 

 of a flower when whole, differs from that it presents when 

 bruised, and the same may be observed of whole and powdered 

 amber ; or in tastes, for the taste of a pear before it is ripe, and 

 of the same pear when bruised and softened, is different, since 

 it becomes perceptibly more sweet. But such violence is of little 

 avail in the more noble transformations and changes of homo- 

 geneous bodies, for they do not, by such means, acquire any 

 constantly and permanently new state, but one that is transitory, 

 and always struggling to return to its former habit and freedom. 

 It would not, however, be useless to make some more diligent 

 experiments with regard to this; whether, for instance, the 

 condensation of a perfectly homogeneous body (such as air, 

 water, oil, and the like) or their rarefaction, when effected by 

 violence, can become permanent, fixed, and, as it were, so 

 changed, as to become a nature. This might at first be tried by 

 simple perseverance, and then by means of helps and harmonies. 

 It might readily have been attempted (if we had but thought of 

 it), when we condensed water (as was mentioned above), by 

 hammering and compression, until it burst out. For we ought 

 to have left the flattened globe untouched for some days, and 



