566 NOVUM ORGANUM. [[BOOK II. 



mentary instances, lancing instances, instances of the rod, in- 

 stances of the course, doses of nature, wrestling instances, 

 suggesting instances, generally useful instances, and magical in- 

 stances. The advantage, by which these instances excel the 

 more ordinary, regards specifically either theory or practice, or 

 both. With regard to theory, thejr assist either the senses or 

 the understanding ; the senses, as in the five instances of the 

 lamp ; the understanding, eithisr by expediting the exclusive 

 mode of arriving at the form, as in solitary instances, or by con- 

 fining, and more immediately indicating the afiirmative, as in the 

 migrating, conspicuous, accompanying, and subjunctive in- 

 stances ; or by elevating the understanding, and leading it to 

 general and common natures, and that either immediately, as 

 in the clandestine and singular instances, and those of alliance ; 

 or very nearly so, as in the constitutive ; or still less so, as in 

 the similar instances ; or by correcting the understanding of its 

 habits, as in the deviating instances ; or by leading to the grand 

 form or fabric of the universe, as in the bordering instances ; or 

 by guarding it from false forms and causes, as in those of the 

 cross and of divorce. With regard to practice, they either point 

 it out, or measure, or elevate it. They point it out, either by 

 showing where we must commence in order not to repeat the 

 labours of others, as in the instances of power ; or by inducing 

 us to aspire to that which may be possible, as in the suggesting 

 instances ; the four mathematical instances measure it. The 

 generally useful and the magical elevate it. 



Again, out of these twenty-seven instances, some must be 

 collected immediately, without waiting for a particular investi- 

 gation of properties. Such are the similar, singular, deviating, 

 and bordering instances, those of power, and of the gate, and 

 suggesting, generally useful, and magical instances ; for these 

 either assist and cure the understanding and senses, or furnish 

 our general practice. The remainder are to be collected when 

 we finish our synoptical tables for the work of the interpreter, 

 upon any particular nature ; for these instances, honoured and 

 gifted with such prerogatives, are like the soul amid the vulgar 

 crowd of instances, and (as we from the first observed) a few of 

 them are worth a multitude of the others. When, therefore, we 

 are forming our tables they must be searched out with the 

 greatest zeal, and placed in the table. And, since mention must 

 be made of them in what follows, a treatise upon their nature 

 has necessarily been prefixed. We must next, however, proceed 

 to the supports and corrections of induction, and thence to con- 

 cretes, the latent process, and latent conformations, and the other 

 matters, which we have enumerated in their order in the twenty- 

 first aphorism, in order that, like good and faithful guardians, 

 we may yield up their fortune to mankind, upon the emancipa* 



