XXVII

Among Prerogative Instances I will put in the sixth place Instances Conformable, or of Analogy; which I also call Parallels, or Physical Resemblances. They are those which represent the resemblances and conjugations of things, not in lesser forms (as constitutive instances do) but merely in the concrete. Hence they may be called the first and lowest steps toward the union of nature. Nor do they constitute any axiom immediately from the beginning, but simply point out and mark a certain agreement in bodies. But although they are of little use for the discovery of forms, they nevertheless are very serviceable in revealing the fabric of the parts of the universe, and anatomizing its members; from which they often lead us along to sublime and noble axioms, especially those which relate to the configuration of the world rather than to simple forms and natures.

For example, these following are instances of conformity: a looking glass and the eye; and again, the construction of the ear and places returning an echo. From which conformity, to say nothing of the mere observation of the resemblance which is in many respects useful, it is easy to gather and form this axiom — that the organs of the senses, and bodies which produce reflections to the senses, are of a like nature. Again, upon this hint the understanding easily rises to a higher and nobler axiom, which is this: that there is no difference between the consents or sympathies of bodies endowed with sensation and those of inanimate bodies without sensation, except that in the former an animal spirit is added to the body so disposed, but is wanting in the latter. Whence it follows that there might be as many senses in animals as there are sympathies between inanimate bodies, if there were perforations in the animate body allowing the animal spirit to pass freely into a member rightly disposed, as into a fit organ. Again, as many as are the senses in animals, so many without doubt are the motions in an inanimate body where animal spirit is wanting; though necessarily there are many more motions in inanimate bodies than there are senses in animate, on account of the paucity of organs of sense. And of this a manifest example is exhibited in pain. For though there are many kinds and varieties of pain in animals (as the pain of burning, for one, of intense cold for another; again, of pricking, squeezing, stretching, and the like), it is yet most certain that all of them, as far as the motion is concerned, exist in inanimate substances; for example, in wood or stone, when it is burned or frozen or pricked or cut or bent or stretched, and so on, though they do not enter the senses for want of the animal spirit.

Again, the roots and branches of plants (which may seem strange) are conformable instances. For all vegetable matter swells and pushes out its parts to the surface, as well upward as downward. Nor is there any other difference between roots and branches than that the root is buried in the ground, while the branches are exposed to the air and sun. For if you take a tender and flourishing branch of a tree, and bend it down into a clod of earth, although it does not cohere with the ground itself, it presently produces not a branch but a root. And vice versa, if earth be placed at the top, and so kept down with a stone or any hard substance as to check the plant and prevent it from shooting upward, it will put forth branches into the air downward.

Again, the gums of trees, and most rock gems, are conformable instances. For both of these are nothing else than exudations and filterings of juices, the former from trees, the latter from rocks; whence is produced the splendor and clearness in each, that is, by the fine and delicate filtering. Hence, too, it is that the hairs of animals are not generally so beautiful and of so vivid a color as the feathers of birds, viz., because the juices do not filter so finely through skin as through quills.

Again, the scrotum in males and the matrix in females are conformable instances. So that the great organic difference between the sexes (in land animals at least) appears to be nothing more than that the one organization is external and the other internal. That is to say, the greater force of heat in the male thrusts the genitals outward; whereas in the female the heat is too feeble to effect this, and thus they are contained within.

The fins of fish, again, and the feet of quadrupeds, or the feet and wings of birds, are conformable instances; to which Aristotle has added the four folds in the motions of serpents. Whence it appears that in the structure of the universe the motions of living creatures are generally effected by a quaternion of limbs or of bendings.

Again, the teeth of land animals and the beaks of birds are conformable instances; from which it is manifest that in all perfect animals there is a determination of some hard substance to the mouth.

Nor is that an absurd similitude of conformity which has been remarked between man and a plant inverted. For the root of the nerves and faculties in animals is the head, while the seminal parts are the lowest — the extremities of the legs and arms not reckoned. In a plant, on the other hand, the root (which answers to the head) is regularly placed in the lowest part, and the seeds in the highest.

To conclude, it cannot too often be recommended and enjoined that men's diligence in investigating and amassing natural history be henceforward entirely changed and turned into the direction opposite to that now in use. For hitherto men have used great and indeed overcurious diligence in observing the variety of things, and explaining the exact specific differences of animals, herbs, and fossils; most of which are rather sports of nature than of any serious use toward science. Such things indeed serve to delight, and sometimes even give help in practice; but for getting insight into nature they are of little service or none. Men's labor therefore should be turned to the investigation and observation of the resemblances and analogies of things, as well in wholes as in parts. For these it is that detect the unity of nature, and lay a foundation for the constitution of sciences.

But here must be added a strict and earnest caution, that those only are to be taken for conformable and analogous instances which indicate (as I said at the beginning) physical resemblances, that is, real and substantial resemblances; resemblances grounded in nature, not accidental or merely apparent; much less superstitious or curious resemblances, such as the writers on natural magic (very frivolous persons, hardly to be named in connection with such serious matters as we are now about) are everywhere parading — similitudes and sympathies of things that have no reality, which they describe and sometimes invent with great vanity and folly.

But to leave these. The very configuration of the world itself in its greater parts presents conformable instances which are not to be neglected. Take, for example, Africa and the region of Peru with the continent stretching to the Straits of Magellan, in each of which tracts there are similar isthmuses and similar promontories, which can hardly be by accident.

Again, there is the Old and New World, both of which are broad and extended towards the north, narrow and pointed towards the south.

We have also most remarkable instances of conformity in the intense cold existing in what is called the middle region of the air and the violent fires which are often found bursting forth from beneath the ground, which two things are ultimities and extremes; that is to say, the extreme of the nature of cold toward the circumference of the sky, of heat toward the bowels of the earth, by antiperistasis or the rejection of the contrary nature.

Lastly, the conformity of instances in the axioms of science is deserving of notice. Thus the rhetorical trope of deceiving expectation is conformable with the musical trope of avoiding or sliding from the close or cadence; the mathematical postulate that if two things are equal to the same thing they are equal to one another is conformable with the rule of the syllogism in logic which unites propositions agreeing in a middle term. In fine, a certain sagacity in investigating and hunting out physical conformities and similitudes is of very great use in very many cases.