148 PREFACE TO THE 



Of these, the first is merely a skeleton of an enquiry, 

 the titles of the several chartce being given in order, 

 but the titles only ; the second is a rough collection of 

 materials for that enquiry de forma Calidi, which was 

 afterwards selected as the example to illustrate the 

 method by, in the second book of the Novum Organum ; 

 both have evidently been intended as specimens of the 

 materies particularium ad opus intellectus ordinata, and 

 there can be little doubt that they belong properly to 

 this period and place. The third is a collection of the 

 materries particular ium, set out without any indication 

 of a tabular arrangement, and may perhaps have been 

 drawn up in its present shape about the same time with 

 those portions of the natural history which belong to 

 the third part of the Instauration, and to which in form 

 it bears a greater resemblance. But in the absence of 

 all evidence from which the date of composition can be 

 inferred, the reference in the Commentarius Solutus in- 

 duces me to place it here. 



The preface, entitled Franciscus Bacon Lectori, stands 

 in Gruter's volume immediately before the Filmn Laby- 

 rinthi, and probably belongs to it. 



The selection of Motion as the first subject to which 

 the new method was to be applied and the example by 

 which it was to be illustrated, strikes me as very char- 

 acteristic both of the aspiring genius of Bacon's phi- 

 losophy and of the error of judgment which lay at the 

 bottom of it. He saw that all the active operations of 

 nature were modes of motion, and concluded that if we 

 could thoroughly understand the nature of motion, we 

 should at once have the key to her secret processes, and 

 therewithal the command over her powers ; which was 

 the true end and aim of knowledge. The subtlety and 



