THE NOVUM ORGANUM. 73 



tions, are clearly occasional writings not belonging to the circuit 

 of the Instauratio. 



To the fourth part have been referred the Historia Ventorum, 

 the Historia Vita et Mortis, &c. This however is contrary to 

 Bacon's description of them in the dedication to Prince Charles 

 prefixed to the Historia Ventorum. They are there spoken of 

 as the "primitive Histories nostra3 naturalis." Even the general 

 title with which the Historia Ventorum and the titles of five 

 other Historic were published, shows that they belong not to 

 the fourth but to the third part of the Instauratio. It is as 

 follows: Historia Naturalis ad condendam Philosophiam^ sive 

 Phenomena Universi, qua est Instaurationis Mac/nee pars tertia. 

 It is moreover manifest that as the fourth part was to contain 

 applications to certain subjects of Bacon's method of induction, 

 these treatises, in which the method is nowhere employed, can- 

 not belong to it. M. Bouillet, though he justly dissents from 

 Shaw's * arrangement, by whom they are referred to the fourth 

 part, nevertheless commits an error of the same kind by intro- 

 ducing into this division of the Instauratio a fragment on Motion, 

 published by Gruter with the title Filum Labyrinthi, sive 

 Inquisitio legitima de Motu. This fragment, which is doubt- 

 less anterior to the Novum Oryanum, contains many thoughts 

 and expressions which are found more perfectly developed either 

 in the Novum Organum itself, or in the Distributio Operis. It is 

 not to be supposed that Bacon, after thus expressing himself in 

 the Distributio "Neque enim hoc siverit Deus ut phantasiae nos- 

 tras somnium pro exemplari mundi edamus ; sed potius benigne 

 faveat ut apocalypsim ac veram visionem vestigiorum et sigillo- 

 rum Creatoris super creaturas scribamus " would have repeated 

 this remarkable sentence with scarcely any alteration in another 

 part of the Instauratio 2 ; nor that he would have repeated in 



general scheme the Thema Cceli would have come before the De Fluxu. In a letter to 

 Bacon, dated 14th April 1619, Tobie Matthew speaks of Galileo's having answered 

 Bacon's discourse touching the flux and reflux of the sea : but he alludes apparently 

 to a discourse of Galileo's on that subject which had never been printed. J. S. 



1 The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, &c. ; methodised 

 and made English from the Originals, by Peter Shaw, M.D. London, 1733. J. S. 



2 I doubt whether this argument can be safely relied upon. Among the works 

 which were certainly meant to stand as part of the Instauratio several remarkable 

 passages occur twice and more than twice. But there are other grounds for con- 

 cluding that the Inquisitio de Motu was written soon after the Cogitata et Visa (1607). 

 In the Commentarius solutus, a kind of diary which will be pi'inted among the Occa- 

 sional Works, I find the following entry under the date July 26. 1608 : " The finish- 

 ing the 3 tables De Motu, De Galore et Frigore, De Sono." After which follow 



