PKEFACE 



TEMPORIS PAETUS IASCULUS, 



AT the end of the manuscript of the Valerius Ter- 

 minus, and immediately following it in the same page, 

 in the hand of the same transcriber, I find the title and 

 the first chapter of the piece which follows ; and in the 

 list of contents inserted by Bacon himself at the begin- 

 ning of the manuscript, I find them thus described: 

 " The first chapter of a book of the same argument, 

 written in Latin, and destined to be separate and not 

 public." The design and commencement of the work 

 may therefore, in default of other evidence, be safely 

 referred to the time when Bacon revised the manu- 

 script of Valerius Terminus. 



Again, in Gruter's Scripta PhilosopJiica I find this 

 same first chapter inserted, though not in connexion 

 with the general title, among the Impetus Philosophici, 

 and followed by another which is headed simply Caput 

 secundum, without any other description ; whence I 

 conclude that the two were found by Grater together, 

 as if forming one piece. If so, the general title, which 

 certainly belongs to the first, may be safely extended to 

 both : and accordingly they are printed here as the 

 first and second chapters of the Temporis Partus 

 Masculus. 



