NOVUM ORGANUM. 



305 



rotations, of attraction, or magnetic influence, and many other things 

 which are of more common occurrence than astronomical questions). 

 For no one may hope to determine the question whether it be the 

 earth or heaven that really revolves in daily motion, unless he shall 

 first have comprehended the nature of spontaneous motion. 



vi. Hut the Latent Process of which we speak is by no means the 

 kind of thing which could easily occur to the minds of men (occupied 

 as they are now). For by it we do not understand certain measures, 

 or signs, or steps of procession, in bodies which can be perceived ; 

 but a regularly continued process, which, for the most part, escapes 

 the sense. For example, in all generation and transformation of 

 bodies we must inquire what is lost and flies oft&quot;, what remains, what 

 is added, what dilatation or contraction takes place, what union, what 

 separation, what is continued, what is broken off, what impels, what 

 hinders, what is powerful and what weak, and many other particulars. 



And here, again, not only are these points to be considered, in the 

 generation or transformation of bodies, but also in all other alterations 

 and motions a similar inquiry must be made as to what goes before 

 and what succeeds, what is quicker and what more remiss, what 

 causes motion and what governs it, and questions of the like sort. 

 Hut all these points are unknown and untouched in the present state 

 of the Sciences, constructed as they are after a most rude and clumsy 

 fashion. For since all natural action is carried on by steps infinitelv 

 small, or at least too small to strike the sense, no one may hope to 

 govern or change Nature until he has duly comprehended and noted 

 them. 



vii. In like manner, the investigation and discovery of Latent 

 Structure in bodies is a new thing, no less than the discovery of 

 Latent Process and Form. For we are as yet merely walking in the 

 entrance-halls of Nature, and are not ready for an approach to her 

 inner shrines. Now, no one can endue a given body with a new 

 nature, or successfully and suitably transmute it into a new body, 

 unless he has a good knowledge of the body to be changed or 

 transformed. For he will run into methods which are vain, or at 

 least difficult and perverse, and unfitted for the nature of the body on 

 which he is operating. -And so for this also a way must be opened 

 and constructed. 



Now, upon the anatomy of organic bodies (as of men and animals), 

 labour has been rightly and advantageously spent ; and it seems to 

 be a subtle matter, and a good scrutiny of Nature. Hut this kind of 

 anatomy is visible and subject to sense, and has place only in organic 

 bodies. And it is something obvious and ready at hand, in comparison 

 with the true anatomy of Latent Structure in bodies which are held 

 to be similar, especially in things of a specific character, and their 

 parts, as iron or stone ; and in the similar parts of plants or animals, 

 as the root, the leaves, the flower, flesh, blood, bone, &c. But even 

 in this kind of anatomy human industry has not been entirely idle ; 

 for the very thing intended by the separation of similar bodies by 

 distillation, and other methods of solution, is that the dissimilarity of 



