558 iJOVWM ORGA^jdM. [book it 



become rarefied, dry, and wasted, and notliing to become con- 

 densed or soft, except by mixtures, and, as it were, spurious 

 methods. Instances ot cold, therefore, should be searched for 

 most diligently, such as may be found by exposing bodies upon 

 buildings in a hard frost, in subterraneous caverns, by surround- 

 ing bodies with snow and ice in deep places excavated for that 

 purpose, by letting bodies down into vfells, by burying bodies in 

 quicksilver and metals, by immersing them in streams which 

 petrify wood, by burying them in the earth (which the Chinese 

 are reported to do with their china, masses of which, made for 

 that purpose, are said to remain in the ground for forty or fifty 

 years, and to be transmitted to their heirs as a sort of artificial 

 mine), and the like. The condensations which take place in 

 nature, by means of cold, should also be investigated, that by 

 learning their causes, they may be introduced into the arts ; 

 such as are observed in the exudation of marble and stones, in 

 the dew upon the panes of glass in a room towards morning 

 after a frosty night, in the formation and the gathering of 

 vapours under the earth into water, whence spring fountains, 

 and the like. 



Besides the substances which are cold to the touch, there are 

 others which have also the efi'ect of cold, and condense ; they 

 appear, however, to act only upon the bodies of animals, and 

 scarcely any further. Of these we have many instances, in 

 medicines and plasters. Some condense the flesh and tangible 

 parts, such as astringent and inspissating medicines, others the 

 spirits, such as soporifics. There are two modes of condensing 

 the spirits, by soporifics or provocatives to sleep; the one by 

 calming the motion, the other by expelling the spirit. The 

 violet, dried roses, lettuces, and other benign or mild remedies, 

 by their friendly and gently cooling vapours, invite the spirits to 

 unite, and restrain their violent and perturbed motion. Rose- 

 water, for instance, applied to the nostrils in fainting fits, causes 

 the resolved and relaxed spirits to recover themselves, and, as it 

 were, cherishes them. But opiates, and the like, banish the 

 spirits by their malignant and hostile quality. If they be ap- 

 plied, therefore, externally, the spirits immediately quit the part 

 and no longer readily flow into it ; but if they be taken inter- 

 nally, their vapour, mounting to the head, expels, in all direc- 

 "^ons, the spirits contained in the ventricles of the brain, and 



without the assumption of some ai-bitrary test, to whick the degrees are 

 to be referred. In the next sentence Bacon appears to have taken the 

 power of animal life to support heat or cold as the test, and then the 

 comparison can only be between the degree oi heat or of cold that w'K 

 produce death. 



The zero must be arbitrary which divides equally a certain degree of 

 heat from a certain degree of cold. 



