78 PREFACE TO 



visions of the Novum Organum.* Assuming, which there is no 

 reason to doubt, that this statement may be relied upon, it would 

 seem to follow that the composition of the Novum Organum 

 commenced in 1608. And this agrees tolerably well with the 

 circumstance that the Cogitata et Visa was sent to Bodley 

 in 1607, as we learn from the date of Bodley's reply to it. If 

 we suppose that the tract published with this title by Gruter is 

 the same as that which was sent to Bodley, a passage near the 

 end acquires a significance which has not I think been re- 

 marked. In the Cogitata et Visa Bacon speaks of the considera- 

 tions whereby he had been led to perceive the necessity of a 

 reform in philosophy, and goes on to say that the question as to 

 how his new method might be most fitly given to the world had 

 been much in his thoughts. " Atque diu," he proceeds, " et 

 acriter rem cogitanti et perpendenti ante omnia visum est ei 

 tabulas inveniendi, sive legitimae inquisitionis formulas ... in 

 aliquibus subjectis proponi tanquam ad exemplum et operis de- 

 scriptionem fere visibilem. 2 . . . Visum est autem, nimis ab- 

 ruptum esse ut a tabulis ipsis docendi initium sumatur. Itaque 

 idonea quasdam praefari oportuisse, quod et jam se fecisse arbi- 

 tratur." It was Bacon's intention therefore when he wrote 

 the Cogitata et Visa, and when apparently some years later 3 he 

 communicated it to Bodley, to publish an example of the appli- 

 cation of his method to some particular subject an intention 

 which remained unfulfilled until the publication of the Novum 



1 " Ipse reperi in archivis Dominationis suae autographa plus minus duodecim 

 Organi novi, de anno in annum elaborati et ad incudem revocati ; et singulis annis 

 ulteriore lima subinde politi et castigati." In the preceding sentence, he calls it 

 " multorum annorum et laboris improbi proles." Auctoris Vita, prefixed to the 

 Opnscula vnria posthtima, 1658. In the English Life prefixed to the Resuscitatio, 

 which was published the year before, he says, " I myself have seen at the least twelve 

 copies of the Installation ; revised year by year, one after another ; and every year 

 altered and amended in the frame thereof." I doubt whether we can fairly infer from 

 these expressions that these twelve several copies were made in twelve several years ; 

 but substantially they bear out the inference drawn from them. J. S. 



2 In the Commentarius solutus, under date July 26, 1608, 1 find the following 

 memorandum : " Seeing and trying whether the B. of Canterb. may not be affected 

 in it, being single and glorious, and believing the sense. 



" Not desisting to draw in the Bp. Awnd. [Bishop Andrews, probably] being single, 

 rich, sickly, and professor to some experiments : this after the table of motion or some 

 other in part set in forwardness" 



Some other memoranda in the same place relate to the gaining of physicians, and 

 learning from them experiments of surgery and physic ; which explains the epithet 

 " sickly" in the aliove extract. J. S. 



8 Bodley's answer is dated Feb. 19. 1607; i. e. 1607-8; in which he says, " I 

 must tell you, to be plain, that you have very much wronged yourself and the world, to 

 smother such a treasure so long in your coffer." But I do not think we can infer from 

 this that the Cogitata et Visa had been written ' some years " before. Bodley may only 

 allude to his having kept such thoughts so long to himself. J. S. 



