tive of facts. Besides, it is not of much use to recount or to know the exact varieties of flowers, as of the iris or tulip, no, nor of shells or dogs or hawks. For these and the like are but sports and wanton freaks of nature, and almost approach to the nature of individuals. And though they involve an exquisite knowledge of the particular objects, the information which they afford to the sciences is slight and almost useless. And yet these are the things which our ordinary natural history takes pride in. And while it descends to matters which do not belong to it, and indulges to excess in matters superfluous, on the other hand its great and solid parts are either entirely omitted or carelessly and lightly treated. And indeed in the whole course of inquiry pursued and the whole mass of matter gathered, it appears to be in no way adapted or qualified for the end which I have mentioned, namely the building up of philosophy. This will be best shown in the particular branches of it, and by comparing the history of which I am now going to set forth a description, with that which we have.

CHAPTER IV.

Beginning of a treatise showing of what nature the required history should be; namely the Natural History which is to serve as a foundation of Philosophy. For the clearer explanation of this, a division of the History of Generations is first subjoined. This is digested into five parts. The first the History of the Heavens; the second, the His. tory of Meteors; the third, the History of Earth and Sea; the fourth, the History of Collegia Majora, or Elements or Masses; the fifth, the History of Collegia Minora, or Species. The history of Primary Virtues is postponed, till the explanation of this first division, of Generations, Preter-generations, and Arts, is concluded.

ALTHOUGH I consider myself bound not to leave the completion of this history which I pronounce deficient to others, but to take it upon myself; because the more it may seem a thing open to every man's industry, the greater fear there is that they will go astray from my design; and I have therefore marked it out as the third part of my instauration; yet that I may still keep true to my plan of giving either explanations or specimens of those things which are wanting, and likewise that in case of my death there may be something saved, I think fit now in this place to set down my opinion and advice in this matter. Of the History of Generations or Nature at large I set down five parts. These are the History of Ether; the History of Meteors and of the Regions of the Air, as they are called; for the sublunar region down to the surface of the earth, and the bodies situated upon it, I assign to the history of meteors; Comets likewise of all kinds (however the truth may be) yet for the sake of order I include among meteors. Third comes the History of the Earth and Sea, which together make up one globe. And so far the nature of things is distributed according to places and positions. The two remaining parts distinguish the substances of things or rather masses. For connatural bodies are congregated into greater and lesser masses; which I commonly term greater and lesser Colleges, and which are related to one another in the polity of the world as tribes or families. Therefore fourth in order is placed the History of Elements or the Greater Colleges; fifth and last, the History of Species or the Lesser Colleges. For I mean by Elements not the commencements of things, but only the greater masses of connatural bodies. Now this greatness of mass is owing to the texture of the matter of which they are composed being easy, simple, obvious, and prepared; whereas species are sparingly supplied by nature, because the texture of matter is complex, and in most cases organic. As for those virtues which may be regarded as cardinal and universal in nature, as Dense, Rare, Light, Heavy, Hot, Cold, Consistent, Fluid, Similar, Dissimilar, Specific, Organic, and the like, together with the motions contributing to them, as Resistance, Connexion, Contraction, Expansion, and the rest (the history of which I would by all means have collected and constructed, even before we come to the work of the intellect), I will treat of the history of these and of the manner of constructing it, when I have completed the explanation of this triple division, of Generations, Preter-generations, and Arts. For I have not included it in that threefold division, because it is not properly a history, but as it were a middle term between history and philo

sophy. But now I will speak of the History of the Celestial Bodies, and give precepts concerning them, and then of the rest.

CHAPTER V.

The history of Celestial Bodies is resumed; showing both what it should be in kind, and that the legitimate ordering of such a history turns on three kinds of precepts ; namely, the End, the Matter, and the Manner of Construction.

I WOULD have the History of Celestial Bodies simple, and without any infusion of dogmas; all theoretical doctrine being as it were suspended: a history embracing only the phenomena themselves (now almost incorporated with the dogmas) pure and separate; a history in short, setting forth a simple narrative of the facts, just as if nothing had been settled by the arts of astronomy and astrology, and only experiments and observations had been accurately collected and described with perspicuity. In which kind of history there is nothing extant which satisfies me. Something of the kind indeed Pliny has touched on cursorily and loosely; but that would be the best history of the celestial bodies which might be extracted and worked out from Ptolemæus and Copernicus and the more learned writers on astronomy, taking the experiments detached from the art, and adding the observations of more modern writers. It may seem strange that I should wish to recall to their primitive rudeness and the simplicity of naked observations things so laboriously produced, advanced, and amended. But the truth is that, without meaning to throw away the benefit of former inventions, I am attempting a far greater work: for it is not merely calculations or predictions that I aim at, but philosophy: such a philosophy I mean as may inform the human understanding, not only of the motion of the heavenly bodies and the period of that motion, but likewise of their substance, various qualities, powers, and influences, according to natural and certain reasons, free from the superstition and frivolity of traditions; and again such as may discover and explain in the motion itself, not what is accordant with the phenomena, but what is found in nature herself, and is actually and really true. Now it is easy to see, that both they who think the earth revolves, and they who hold the primum mobile and the old construction, are about equally and indifferently supported by the phenomena. Nay, and the author of the new construction in our own day, who made the sun the centre of the secundum mobile, as the earth of the primum mobile, whereby the planets in their proper revolutions would seem to wheel in dance round the sun (as some of the ancients suspected to be the case with Venus and Mercury), if he had thought the matter fairly out, might probably have brought it to a very good conclusion 1. Nor have I any doubt but that other similar constructions might by wit and severe thought be invented. Neither indeed do they who propose these theories mean to say that the things they allege are actually true, but only that they are convenient hypotheses for calculations and the construction of tables. But my plan has a different aim; for I seek not for ingenious adjustments, which may be many, but for the truth of the thing, which is simple. And to this a history of phenomena kept pure and simple will open the way, while one tinctured with dogma will obstruct it. I may say also, that as I hope for the discovery of the truth regarding the heavenly bodies from a history made and compiled according to my principle, by itself alone; so I rest that hope much more upon observation of the common passions and desires of matter in both globes. For those supposed divorces between ethereal and sublunary things seem to me but figments, superstitions mixed with rashness; seeing it is most certain that very many effects, as of expansion, contraction, impression, cession, collection into masses, attraction, repulsion, assimilation, union, and the like, have place not only here with us, but also in the heights of the heaven and the depths of the earth. Nor have we any more faithful interpreters to consult in order that the human understanding may penetrate the depths of the earth, which are never seen at all, and the heights

1 The reference is to Tycho Brahe, and by nonnulli ex antiquis Bacon probably meant Martianus Capella and Vitruvius.

of heaven which are for the most part seen untruly. Most excellently therefore did the ancients represent Proteus, him of the many shapes, to be likewise a prophet triply great; as knowing the future, the past, and the secrets of the present. For he who knows the universal passions of matter and thereby knows what is possible to be, cannot help knowing likewise what has been, what is, and what will be, according to the sums of things. Therefore the best hope and security for the study of celestial bodies I place in physical reasons; meaning by physical reasons not such as are commonly supposed, but only the doctrine concerning those appetites of matter which no diversity of regions or places can distract or dissever. Not that on this account (to return to my design) I would have any diligence spared in descriptions and observations of the celestial phenomena themselves. For the fuller our supply of such appearances, the readier and surer will everything be. But before I speak more of this, I have to congratulate both the industry of mechanics, and the zeal and energy of certain learned men, that now of late by the help of optical instruments, as by skiffs and barks, they have opened a new commerce with the phenomena of the heavens; an undertaking which I regard as being both in the end and in the endeavour a thing noble and worthy of the human race; the rather because these men are as much to be praised for their honesty as for their boldness; seeing that they have ingenuously and perspicuously explained the manner in which each point of their proceeding in each case has been made out. All that is wanted further is constancy and great severity of judgment, to change the instruments, to increase the number of witnesses, to try each particular experiment many times and many ways; lastly, to suggest to themselves and open to others every objection that can be made, not despising even the minutest scruple; lest it fare with them as with Democritus in the matter of the sweet figs, when it turned out that the old woman was wiser than the philosopher, and that a vast and wonderful speculation was built upon a trifling and ridiculous mistake. But now having made these general remarks by way of preface, let us go on to a description of the history of celestial bodies more at large, to show what and what kind of things are to be sought concerning them. First, therefore, I will set down the questions in nature, at least some of them, and those the chief; to these I will add the uses which may probably be derived to man from the study of celestial bodies; both of these as being the mark at which the history aims; that they who undertake to compose a history of the heavens may know what we are about, and may keep these questions, together with these operations and effects, in mind and view; and so proceed to form such a history as shall be adapted to the solution of the said questions, and the procuring of such fruits and benefits to the human race. Now the questions I mean are of that kind which inquire of the fact in nature, not of causes. For this is the proper business of history. Next, I will show distinctly in what the history of celestial bodies consists, and what are its parts; what things are to be understood or inquired, what experiments to be collected and procured, what observations to be employed and sifted; propounding as it were certain Inductive Topics, or Articles of Interrogation concerning the heavens. Lastly, I will give some precepts, not only concerning that which should be sought, but also how the matters under inquiry are to be examined and how presented and put in writing; that the diligence of the first inquiry may not be lost in passing it on, nor (what is worse) the beginning of the work, on which the subsequent progress depends, prove weak and fallacious. In short I will explain both what should be inquired with regard to the heavenly bodies, and with what view, and in what manner.

GHAPTER VI.

That philosophical questions concerning the Celestial Bodies, even such as are contrary to opinion, and somewhat harsh, should be received. Five questions are propounded concerning the system itself; namely, is there a system? if there be, what is the centre of it, what the depth, what the connexion, and what the position of the parts ? Most men no doubt will think that I am digging up the remains of old questions long since laid up and buried, and in a manner raising their ghosts, and mixing

fresh questions with them. But since the philosophy of which we are hitherto in possession concerning the heavens has no soundness; and since it is my constant determination to refer everything to a new trial by legitimate induction; and since if any questions are passed over, there will be so much less pains and diligence bestowed on the history, because it will perhaps seem superfluous to inquire of things concerning which no question has been raised; I hold it necessary to take in hand all questions which the nature of things anywhere presents. Nay, the less certain I am concerning the questions which are to be determined by my method, the less difficulty do I make in entertaining them. For I see an end of the matter. The first question therefore is, whether there be a system? that is, whether the world or universe compose altogether one globe, with a centre; or whether the particular globes of earth and stars be scattered dispersedly each on its own roots, without any system or common centre? Certainly the school of Democritus and Epicurus boasted that their founders had overthrown the walls of the world; yet this did not absolutely follow from their words. For when Democritus had set down matter or seeds as infinite in quantity and finite in attributes and power, as moving about, and never located in any position from all eternity, he was driven by the very force of this opinion to constitute multiform worlds, subject to birth and death, some well ordered, others badly put together, even essays of worlds and vacant spaces between. But yet though this were admitted, there was no reason why that part of matter which is assigned to this particular world which is visible to us, should not have the shape of a globe. For each one of those worlds must have received some shape; and although there can be no middle point in infinity, yet in the parts of infinity a round figure may exist, no less in a world than in a ball. Now Democritus was a good dissector of the world, but in the integral parts of the world inferior even to the ordinary philosophers. But the opinion of which I am now speaking, which destroyed and confounded system, was that of Heraclides Ponticus, Ecphan. tus, and Nicetas of Syracuse, and most of all Philolaus, and likewise, in our own day, of Gilbert, and all those (except Copernicus) who believed that the earth was a planet and movable, and as it were one of the stars 1. And the effect of this opinion is that the several planets and stars, together with innumerable other stars which elude our sight by reason of their distance, and others again which are invisible to us from their nature being not lucent but opaque, having each of them obtained their own globes and primary forms, are scattered and suspended through that immense expanse which we behold above us, whether it be of vacuum or some thin and almost indifferent body, like so many islands in an immense sea, and revolve not round any common centre, but each separately round its own; some simply, others with some progressive motion of the 1 All the persons here mentioned affirmed that the earth moved, but their opinions are not accurately represented. Thus Ecphantus and Heraclides denied that the earth changes its place. According to them it moves, but où μýv ye μeтaßaтik@s (Plutarch, De Placit. Philos. iii. 13): and with respect to Ecphantus we are expressly told by the pseudo-Origen, Philos. c. 15, that he affirmed thν yŷν μéσov коσμον KivεîσÐαι Teρi Tò αὐτῆς κέντρον, ὡς πρὸς ἀνατολήν ; so far was he from rejecting the notion of a κόσμος or system. Philolaus undoubtedly admitted the motion of the earth through space, and so probably did Nicetas, or rather Hicetas ; but neither of them rejected the notion of a system. For Philolaus, see Boeckh's Philolaus and the second dissertation De Platonico Systemate. The Philolaic system (although Martin appears to doubt it) was probably the same as that of the Pythagoreans in general. According to it, neither the earth nor the sun is at rest, but both, with the planets, revolve about a central fire, the light from which is reflected to us from the sun. It never reaches us directly, because between us and it revolves the Antichthon, which is either a separate planet, or simply the other side of the earth, for the point does not seem quite settled. [See Berry, Short Hist. of Astron., p. 25, for a solution.-Ed.] The passage in the text is apparently taken from Gilbert, De Magnete, vi. 3. Heraclides, though he did not believe in the earth's moving through space, yet affirmed, as did also the Pythagoreans, that each of the heavenly bodies constitutes a kóσuos in itself. See Stobæus, Ec. Phys. i. 25. On the other hand, Philolaus and Ecphantus distinctly asserted the unity of the universe. See Stobæus, i. 16, 23.

centre. Now the harshest thing in this opinion is, that they take away quiet or immobility from nature 2. But it seems that as there are bodies in the universe which revolve, that is, which move with an infinite and perpetual motion, so on the other hand there should be some body which is at rest; between which comes a middle nature, of such as move in a straight line; seeing that motion in a straight line suits the parts of globes, and things banished from their native countries, which move towards the globes of their connaturals, that being united with then they may themselves also either revolve or rest. But this question (namely, whether there be a system) will be answered by that which shall be determined concerning the motion of the earth, that is, whether the earth stands still or revolves, and the substance of the stars, whether they are solid or flamy, and the ether or interstellar spaces in the heaven, whether they consist of body or vacuum. For if the earth be stationary and the heavens revolve in a diurnal motion, there is doubtless a system; but if the earth revolve, it does not necessarily follow that there is no system; because there may be some other centre of the system; the sun, for instance, or something else. Again, if the globe of the earth be the only one dense and solid, it would seem that the matter of the universe is collected and condensed to that centre; but if it be found that the moon or some of the planets consist likewise of dense and solid matter, it would seem that dense bodies collect not to any one centre, but dispersedly, and as it were fortuitously. Lastly, if it be asserted that there is a collective vacuum in the interstellar spaces it would seem that each globe has round it an emanation of rarer substance, and beyond that a vacuum 3. But if these spaces be filled with body, it would seem that there is a union of dense things in the middle, and a repulsion of rarer things to the circumference. Now it is of great importance to science to know the conjugations of questions; because in some cases there is history or inductive matter by which they may be settled, in others not so. But granting that there is a system, we come next to the second question, what is the centre of that system? For if any one of the globes is to occupy the position of centre, there are two especially, which offer themselves as having the nature of a middle or centre; namely, the earth and the sun. In favour of the earth, we have the evidence of our sight, and an inveterate opinion; and most of all this, that as dense bodies are contracted into a narrow compass, and rare bodies are widely diffused (and the area of every circle is contracted to the centre), it seems to follow almost of necessity that the narrow space about the middle of the world be set down as the proper and peculiar place for dense bodies. In favour of the sun, on the other hand, we have this consideration, that that body which has the chief office in the system should occupy that place from which it may best act on the whole system and communicate its influence. And since the sun is that which seems most to vivify the world by imparting heat and light, it appears to be altogether right and in order that it should be placed in the middle of the world. Besides, the sun manifestly has Venus and Mercury as his satellites 4, and in the opinion

2 Yet Bacon would have found, by referring to Cicero, that Nicetas at least denied that any part of the universe except the earth is in motion.

3 Compare Gilbert, Physiol. ii. 27.

It is difficult to see why Bacon should speak of this as manifest; the theory that Mercury and Venus are satellites of the sun constitutes a distinct system, often called the Egyptian. See with respect to it Martin, Etudes, etc., vol. ii. p. 129. According to Gassendi, Copernicus was much struck by the passage of Martianus Capella in which this system is mentioned. Apelt has remarked that the Copernican system includes two distinct elements: the first the reference of the motion of the planets to the sun as a common centre; the second the doctrine of the motion of the earth. The first was common to Copernicus with Tycho Brahe; the second was his own exclusively. Tycho's system, as Apelt well observes, is the natural transition from Ptolemy's to the Copernican, and must of necessity have been arrived at as soon as the true distances between the sun and the planets were introduced into the Ptolemaic hypothesis. Thus Tycho's system is a step backwards, although it saved the phenomena as well as that of Copernicus; but, as Apelt goes on to remark, Tycho was an observer and Copernicus a philosopher, who sought not merely for an astronomical hypothesis, but for a new idea of the universe.