54 GENERAL PREFACE TO 



omnes qui de substantiis illis inoorporalibus corporum loquun- 

 tur non possunt mentem suam explicare nisi translatione a Men- 

 tibus sumpta. Hinc enim attributus illis appetitus vel instinctus 

 ille naturalis ex quo et sequitur cognitio naturalis, hinc illud 

 axioma : Natura nihil facit frustra, omnis res fugit sui destruc- 

 tionem, similia similibus gaudent, materia appetit formam nobi- 

 liorem, et alia id genus. Quum tamen revera in natura nulla 

 sit sapientia, nullus appetitus, ordo vero pulcher ex eo oriatur, 

 quia est horologium Dei." To the censure implied in these 

 remarks Aristotle is himself in some measure liable, seeing that 

 he ascribed the various changes which go on around us to the 

 half-conscious or unconscious workings of an indwelling power 

 which pervades all things, and to which he gives the name of 

 Nature. Nature does nothing in vain and of things possible 

 realises the best, but she does not act with conscious prevision. 

 She is, so to speak, the instinct of the universe. 



It is on account of these views that Bacon charges Aristotle 

 with having set aside the doctrine of a providence, by putting 

 Nature in the place of God. 1 Nevertheless Bacon himself 

 thought it possible to explain large classes of phenomena by 

 referring them, not certainly to the workings of Nature, but to 

 the instincts and appetites of individual bodies. His whole 

 doctrine of simple motions is full of expressions which it is 

 very difficult to understand without supposing that Bacon had 

 for the time adopted the notion of universally diffused sensation. 

 Thus the " motus nexus " is that in virtue of which bodies, as 

 delighting in mutual contact, will not suffer themselves to be 

 separated. All bodies, we are told, abhor a solution of con- 

 tinuity, and the rising of cream is to be explained by the desire 

 of homogeneous elements for one another. 



The distinction which Bacon has elsewhere taken between 

 sensation and perception, which corresponds to Leibnitz's dis- 

 tinction between apperception and perception, does not appear 

 to accord with these expressions. He there asserts that inani- 

 mate bodies have perception without sensation. But such 

 words as desire and horror imply not only a change worked in 

 the body to which they are applied in virtue of the presence of 

 another, but also a sense of that presence, that is, in Bacon's 

 language, not only perception but sensation. 



1 De Aug. iii. 4. 



