XOVUM OKGA\UM. 595 



subtle than those tf fire. For wine cannot be so clarified by fire as 

 it is by time ; nor arc the ashes resulting from fire as exquisite as the 

 du-st into which substances are resolved and consumed in the course 

 of ages. Again, the sudden and precipitate incorporations and 

 minglings which arc brought about by fire arc far inferior to those 

 which result from Continuance. And the dissimilar and varied 

 structures which are assumed by bodies in the course of time, as 

 putrefactions, arc destroyed by lire or violent heat. Meanwhile it 

 would not be going out of our way to remark that the motions of 

 bodies under complete confinement have some violence. For such 

 restraint impedes the spontaneous motion of a body : and therefore 

 continuance in an open vessel is most conducive to separations ; in a 

 vessel perfectly closed to mixtures ; in one partly closed, but allowing 

 the entrance of the air, to putrefaction. However, Instances of the 

 operations and effects of Continuance must be carefully collected from 

 all quarters. 



5. The regulation of motion, which is the fifth mode of operating, 

 is of no little value. We call it regulation of motion when one body, 

 meeting another, impedes, repels, admits, directs its spontaneous 

 motion. It consists, for the most part, in the shape and position of 

 vessels. Thus the upright cone in alembics assists the condensation 

 of vapours, but the inverted cone assists the refining of sugar in 

 vessels which lie flat. Sometimes also a curved shape is necessary, 

 or one alternately contracting and widening, and the like. Indeed all 

 percolation admits of this explanation, that the meeting body opens 

 the way to one portion of the body, and shuts it to another. Nor docs 

 percolation, or any other regulation of motion, always take place from 

 without, but also by m?ans of another body inside the body; as when 

 pebbles are dropped into water to collect its earthy parts ; when 

 syrups arc clarified with white of eggs, that the coarser parts may 

 adhere and afterwards be separated. To this regulation of motion 

 Tclcsius has also carelessly and unskilfully attributed the figures of 

 animals, which, he says, arc owing to the channels and folds in the 

 womb. I5ut he ought to have noticed the similar formation in the 

 case of cg^s, which have neither wrinkles nor inequalities. But it is 

 true that the regulation of motion produces the shapes in mouldings 

 and castings. 



6. The operations by agreement or aversion (the sixth method) 

 often lie deeply hidden. For occult and specific properties, as they 

 call them, and sympathies and antipathies, arc, to a great extent, the 

 bane of Philosophy. Nor can we hope much for the discovery of the 

 sympathies of things before we have discovered simple Forms and 

 StriK lures. For agreement is nothing but the mutual symmctiy of 

 Forms and Structures. 



Hut the greater and more universal agreements of things arc not 

 utterly obscure ; and so we must begin with them. Their first and 

 chief diversity is this : that some bodies differ very much in quantity 

 and rarity of matter, and yet a^rcc in structure ; while others agree 

 as to density and rarity, but differ in structure. For it has not been 



