376 XOVVM ORGANUAf. 



seeking thus to free themselves, or else to bear the pressure in fairer 

 proportions. And thus much of this kind of motion. 



4. Let the fourth Motion be that to which we have given the name 

 of the Motion of Matter, which is in some sort the converse of the 

 motion just mentioned. For in the Motion of Liberty bodies dread, 

 reject, and shun a new dimension, or a new sphere, or a new expan 

 sion and contraction (for all these different expressions intend the 

 same thing), and strive, with all their might, to recoil and recover 

 their former consistency. On the contrary, in this Motion of Matter, 

 bodies desire a new sphere or dimension, and aspire to it readily and 

 hastily, and sometimes with a very powerful effect (as in the case of 

 gunpowder). Now the instruments of this motion, not the only ones, 

 certainly, but the most powerful, or at least the most frequent, are 

 heat and cold. For example : air, when expanded by tension (as in 

 the case of glass eggs exhausted by suction) labours under a great 

 desire of restoring itself. But if heat be applied, it longs, on the 

 contrary, to expand, and desires a new sphere, and passes over and 

 enters into it readily, as into a new Form (as they say) ; and after 

 undergoing some expansion, does not care to return, unless it be 

 invited thereto by the application of cold ; and this is not a return, 

 but a renewed transformation. In the same manner also water, if it 

 be made to contract under pressure, resists, and wishes to become 

 again as it was before, that is to say, larger. But if intense and pro 

 tracted cold intervene, it condenses itself spontaneously and readily 

 into ice : and if the cold be continued, and be not interrupted by a 

 thaw (as is the case in deep caverns and grottoes), it turns into crystal 

 or some similar material, and never returns to its former consistency. 



5. Let the fifth Motion be the Motion of Continuity, by which 

 term we do not intend simply a primary continuity with some other 

 body (for that is ihe^Motion of Connection], but self-continuity in a 

 fixed body. For it is most certain that all bodies dread a solution of 

 their continuity, some more, some less, but all up to a certain point. 

 For while in hard bodies (as steel or glass) the resistance to a solution 

 of continuity is extremely strong and powerful, liquids again, in which 

 motidn of that kind seems to cease or at least to be languid, are found 

 to be not altogether destitute of it ; it is really there, in its lowest 

 degree of manifestation, and betrays itself in very many experiments ; 

 as in bubbles, in the roundness of drops, in the thin threads of drip 

 pings from roofs, in the tenacity of glutinous bodies, and the like. 

 But most of all does this appetite display itself, if we attempt to 

 extend the discontinuity to small fragments. For in a mortar, after a 

 certain amount of pounding, the pestle produces no further effect ; 

 water does not penetrate into very small chinks ; and even air itself, 

 notwithstanding its corporeal subtlety, docs not suddenly pass into 

 the pores of solid vessels, until after a long-continued insinuation. 



6. Let the sixth Motion be that which we call Motion for Gain, or 

 Motion of Want. It is that by which bodies, when placed among 

 other bodies quite heterogeneous and hostile, if they find no oppor 

 tunity or means of escaping from them, and applying themselves to 



