The Second Book loi 



a cloud, of which mixture were begotten centaurs and 

 chimeras. So whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous 

 imaginations, instead of a laborious and sober inquiry of 

 truth, shall beget hopes and behefs of strange and impossible 

 shapes. 



And therefore we may note in these sciences which 

 hold so much of imagination and behef, as this degenerate 

 Natural Magic, Alchemy, Astrology, and the like, that in 

 their propositions the description of the mean is ever more 

 monstrous than the pretence or efid. For it is a thing more 

 probable, that he that knoweth well the natures of weight, 

 of colour, of pliant and fragile, in respect of the hammer, of 

 volatile and fixed in respect of the fire and the rest, may 

 superinduce upon some metal the nature and Form of gold 

 by such mechanique as belongeth to the production of the 

 natures afore rehearsed, than that some grains of the medi- 

 cine projected should in a few moments of time turn a sea of 

 quicksilver or other material into gold: so it is more pro- 

 bable that he that knoweth the nature of aref action, the 

 nature of assimilation of nourishment to the thing nourished, 

 the manner of increase and clearing of spirits, the manner 

 of the depredations which spirits make upon the humours 

 and solid parts, shall by ambages of diets, bathings, anoint- 

 ings, medicines, motions, and the like, prolong Ufe, or restore 

 some degree of youth or vivacity, than that it can be done 

 with the use of a few drops or scruples of a liquor or receipt. 

 To conclude, therefore, the true Natural Magic, which is 

 that great liberty and latitude of operation which dependeth 

 upon the knowledge of Forms, I may report deficient, as the 

 relative thereof is. 



To which part, if we be serious, and incline not to vanities 

 and plausible discourse, besides the deriving and deducing 

 the operations themselves from Metaphysique, there are 

 pertinent two points of much purpose, the one by way of 

 preparation, the other by way of caution: the first is, that 

 there be made a kalendar, resembling an inventory of the 

 estate of man, containing all the inventions, being the works 

 or fruits of nature or art, which are now extant, and whereof 

 man is already possessed; out of which doth naturally 

 result a note, what things are yet held impossible, or not 

 invented: which kalendar will be the more artificial and 

 serviceable, if to every reputed impossibility you add what 



