42 GENERAL PREFACE TO 



natures the effect is to be ascribed." 1 Of course the great 

 problem is to decide this question, and the method of solving it 

 is called " the freeing of a direction." In explanation of this 

 name, it is to be observed that in Valerius Terminus the prac- 

 tical point of view predominates. Every instance in which a 

 given nature is produced is regarded as a direction for its 

 artificial production. If air and water are mingled together, as 

 in snow, foam, &c., whiteness is the result. This then is a 

 direction for the production of whiteness, since we have only to 

 mingle air and water together in order to produce it. But 

 whiteness may be produced in other ways, and the direction is 

 therefore not free. We proceed gradually to free it by re- 

 jecting, by means of other instances, the circumstances of this 

 which are unessential : a process which is the exact counterpart 

 of the Exclusiva of the Novum Organum. The instance I have 

 given is Bacon's, who developes it at some length. 



Here then we have Bacon's method treated entirely from a 

 practical point of view. This circumstance is worthy of notice 

 because it serves to explain why Bacon always assumes that the 

 knowledge of Forms would greatly increase our command over 

 nature, that it " would enfranchise the power of man unto the 

 greatest possibility of works and effects." It has been asked 

 what reason Bacon had for this assumption. " Whosoever 

 knoweth any Form," he has said in the Advancement) "knoweth 

 the utmost possibility of superinducing that nature upon any 

 variety of nature." Beyond question, the problem of super- 

 inducing the nature is reduced to the problem of superinducing 

 the Form ; but what reason have we for supposing that the one 

 is more easy of solution than the other ? If we knew the Form 

 of malleability, that is, the conditions which the intimate con- 

 stitution of a body must fulfil in order that it may be malleable, 

 does it follow that we could make glass so ? So far as these 

 questions admit of an answer, Valerius Terminus appears to 

 suggest it. Bacon connected the doctrine of Forms with 

 practical operations, because this doctrine, so to speak, repre- 

 sented to him his original notion of the freeing of a direction, 

 which, as the phrase itself implies, had altogether a practical 

 significance. 



Even in the Novum Organum the definition of the Form is 



1 Val. Tcr. c. 17. 



