NOVUM ORGANUM. 



them), arc either falsely ascribed, or intermixed with fables, or, from 

 neglect, very rarely met with. For if any one were to assert that there 

 is enmity between the vine and colcwort, because when planted 

 near one another they are less thriving, the reason is ready that 

 both plants arc succulent, and each, by robbing the ground, defrauds 

 the other of its share of nourishment. If it be said that there is 

 agreement and friendship between corn and the cornflower, or the 

 wild poppy, because these plants hardly ever flourish except in culti 

 vated ground, it ought rather to have been asserted that there is 

 enmity between them, because the poppy and cornflower are produced 

 and created by those juices of the soil which the corn has left and 

 rejected ; so that the sowing of corn prepares the ground for their 

 growth. And the number of false ascriptions of this kind is great. 

 And as to fables they must be utterly rooted up. There remains, 

 indeed, a small number of these agreements, which are certainly 

 proved by experiment, such as those of the magnet and iron, of gold, 

 and quicksilver, and the like. In chemical experiments on metals 

 there are found some others worthy of observation. But they are 

 found in greatest number (in comparison with their usual variety) in 

 some medicines, which, through their occult (as they call them) and 

 specific properties have relation cither to members, or humours, or 

 diseases, or sometimes to individual Natures. Nor should we omit 

 the agreements between the movements and changes of the moon and 

 the affections of bodies below, as they can be gathered and received 

 from a strict and honest selection from experiments in agriculture, 

 navigation, and medicine, or elsewhere. Hut the rarer the universal 

 Instances of more secret agreements are, the more diligently should 

 they be investigated, by means of traditions and trustworthy and 

 honest relations, provided this be done without any levity or credulity, 

 but with an anxious and, as it were, doubting faith. There remains 

 the agreement of bjdics in their mode of operation, inartificial, indeed, 

 but 1 olychrcst in kind ; and this must on no account be omitted, but 

 be investigated with careful observation. It is the readiness or diffi 

 culty of bodies to come together by composition or simple apposition. 

 For some bodies are easily and readily combined and incorporated, 

 but others with difficulty and reluctance. Thus powders mix best 

 with water, ashes and lime with oil, and so on. Nor should we 

 gather merely Instances of the propensity or aversion of bodies to 

 being mingled, but also of their collocation of parts, of their distribu 

 tion, and digestion after being mixed, and lastly of predominance after 

 mixture is completed. 



7. There remains, finally, the seventh and last of these modes of 

 action ; namely, operation by the alternation and interchanging of the 

 other six : but it will not be seasonable to propound examples con 

 cerning this, until we have inquired somewhat more deeply into each 

 of the others. Now a scries or chain of such alternations, accomodated 

 to each particular effect, is a thing at once most difficult to discover, 

 and most efficacious in operation. Hut the greatest impatience as to 

 the investigation and practice of this kind detains and occupies men s 



