66 DISSERTATION SECOND. [ fAar b 



It is only from a skilful physician (hat you can expect a 

 description of a disease which is not full of opinions con- 

 cerning its cause. A similar observation might be made 

 with respect to agriculture ; and with respect to no science 

 more than geology. 



The natural history of any phenomenon, or class of phe- 

 nomena, being thus prepared, the next object is, by a com- 

 parison of the different facts, to find out the cause of the 

 phenomenon, its form, in the language of Bacon, or its es- 

 sence. The form of any quality in body is something 

 "convertible with that quality ; that is, where it exists, the 

 quality is present, and where the quality is present, the 

 form must be so likewise. Thus, if transparency in bodies 

 be the thing inquired after, the form of it is something that, 

 wherever it is found, there is transparency ; and, vice ver- 

 sa, wherever there is transparency, that which we have 

 called the form is likewise present. 



The form, then, differs in nothing from the cause ; only 

 we apply the word cause were it is event or change that 

 is the effect. When the effect or result is a permanent 

 quality, we speak of the form or essence. 



Two other objects, subordinate to forms, but often es- 

 sential to the knowledge of thenf, are also occasionally sub- 

 jects of investigation. These are the latent process, and 

 the latent schematism ; latens processus, et latens schema- 

 lismus. The former is the secret and invisible progress 

 by which sensible changes are brought about, and seems, 

 in Bacon's acceptation, to involve the principle, since call- 

 ed the latv of continuity, according to which, no change, 

 however small, can be effected but in time. To know the 

 relation between the time and the change effected in it, 

 would be to have a perfect knowledge of the lalent process. 

 In the firing of a cannon, for example, the succession of 

 events during the short interval between the application of 



