36 PREFACE TO THE 



The Delineatio is a sketch of the plan of the Novum 

 Organum, as then designed ; and is interesting for 

 three reasons. First, it contains the earliest intima- 

 tion of the entire scheme of the Instauratio Magna ; 

 which Bacon had already resolved to distribute into 

 six parts : the second to treat of the art of interpre- 

 tation ; the third, fourth, and sixth to exhibit the re- 

 sults of the art applied ; and the fifth to be provisional, 

 consisting of anticipations arrived at by the ordinary 

 method, which were afterwards to be verified by the 

 true method. All which agrees exactly with the design 

 ultimately developed in the Distributio Operis. Of the 

 first part he says nothing ; perhaps because, though 

 he had determined to introduce into it the substance 

 of the Advancement of Learning, he had not yet settled 

 the form; and this again agrees very well with my 

 conjecture as to the history of the De Augmentis. 

 Secondly, it marks a stage in the development of 

 Bacon's philosophical theory : by comparing it with 

 the Valerius Terminus, the Cogitata et Visa, and the 

 Novum Organum, we learn something as to the changes 

 which his design underwent as he worked it out (see 

 Mr. Ellis's General Preface, Vol. I. p. 87., and Pref- 

 ace to Novum Organum, p. 143.). Thirdly, though it 

 was afterwards superseded by that portion of the 

 Distributio Operis which describes the contents of the 

 second part of the Instauratio, it is in some places 

 more full and particular, and the description of the 

 Miniatratio ad Rationem adds something to what we 

 otherwise know concerning those parts of the inductive 

 process, which were to have been developed in the 

 third book of the Novum Organum. 



As to the time when it was composed, Mr. Ellis has 



