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iDji the first qualities of cssonrc to form='.* For n1tlioii2:1i notliinjj 

 exists in nature except individual bodies,* exhibitinji; clear indi- 

 vidual efFects accordini^ to particular laws, yet in each branch of 

 learning, that very la\A-, its invest ijraUon, diseovery, and develop- 

 ment, are the foundation both o( theory and practice. 'J'his law, 

 therefore, and its parallel in each science, is what we understand 

 by the term form,* adoptinjj that word because it has grown into 

 common use, and is of familiar occurrence. 



* See Aphorism li. and second paragraph of Aphorisra Ixv. in the 

 first book. 



** Bacon means, th.-it although there exist in nature only individual* 

 ities, yet a certain number of these may have common properties, and 

 be controlled by the same laws. Now, these homogeneous qualities 

 which distinguish them from other individuals, lead us to class them 

 under one expression, and sometimes under a single term. Yet these 

 classes are only pure conceptions in Bacon's opinion, and cannot be 

 taken for distinct substances. He evidently here aims a blow at the 

 Realists, who concluded that the essence which united individualities in 

 a class was th<; only real and innnutable existence in nature, inasmuch 

 as it entered into their ideas of individual substances as a distinct and 

 essential property, and continued in the mind as the mould, type, or 

 pattern of the class, while its individual forma were undergoing per- 

 I>etual renovation and decay. £d. 



* Bacon's definition is obscure. All the idea we have of a law of 

 nature consists in invariable sequence between certain classes of 

 phenomena ; but this cannot be the complete sense attached by Bacon 

 to the term form, as he employs it in the fourth aphorism as convertible 

 with the nature of any object ; and again in the first a])horism, 

 as the natura naturans, or general law or condition in any sub- 

 stance or qualitj', — natura naturata — which is whatever its form is, 

 or that particular combination of forces which impresses a certain 

 nature upon matter subject to its influence. Thus, in the Newtonian 

 lense, the form of whiteness would be that combination of the seven 

 primitive rays of light which give rise to that colour. In combination 

 with this word, and affording a still further insight into its meaning, we 

 have the phrases, latem pi'occssiis ad formam, et latens schematismus cor- 

 porum. Now, the latens schemati.rmus signifies the internal texture, struc- 

 ture, or configui-ation of bodies, or the result of the respective situation 

 of all the parts ol a body ; while the latens processus ad formam puints 

 out the gradation of movements which takes pi ice among the molecula 

 of bodies when they either conserve or change their figui-e. Hence we 

 may consider the form of any quality in body as something convertible 

 V ith that quality, i.e., when it exists the quality is present, and vice vti'sd. 

 In this sense, the form ox a thing differs only from its efficient cause in 

 being permanent, whereas we apj)ly cause to that which exists in order 

 oltinie. '}^he latens processus and latens sch ::inal'ismus are subordinate 

 to form, as concrete exemplifications of its essence. The former is the 

 iscret and invisible process by whicli change is effected, and involTe*- 



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