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Among Prerogative Instances I will put in the twenty-sixth place Polychrest Instances, or Instances of General Use. They are those which relate to a variety of cases and occur frequently and therefore save no small amount of labor and fresh demonstration. Of the instruments and contrivances themselves the proper place for speaking will be when I come to speak of applications to practice and modes of experimenting. Moreover, those which have been already discovered and come into use will be described in the particular histories of the several arts. At present I will subjoin a few general remarks on them as examples merely of this general use.

Besides the simple bringing together and putting asunder of them, man operates upon natural bodies chiefly in seven ways, viz., either by exclusion of whatever impedes and disturbs; or by compressions, extensions, agitations, and the like; or by heat and cold; or by continuance in a suitable place; or by the checking and regulation of motion; or by special sympathies; or by the seasonable and proper alternation, series, and succession of all these ways, or at any rate of some of them.

With regard to the first, the common air, which is everywhere about us and pressing in, and the rays of the heavenly bodies, cause much disturbance. Whatever therefore serves to exclude them may justly be reckoned among things of general use. To this head belong the material and thickness of the vessels in which the bodies are placed on which we are going to operate; also the perfect stopping up of vessels by consolidation and lutum sapientiæ, as the chemists call it. Also the closing in of substances by liquids poured on the outside is a thing of very great use, as when they pour oil on wine or juices of herbs, which spreading over the surface like a lid preserves them excellently from the injury of the air. Nor are powders bad things; for though they contain air mixed up with them, they yet repel the force of the body of air round about, as we see in the preservation of grapes and other fruits in sand and flour. It is good too to spread bodies over with wax, honey, pitch, and like tenacious substances, for the more perfect enclosure of them and to keep off the air and heavenly bodies. I have sometimes tried the effect of laying up a vessel or some other body in quicksilver, which of all substances that can be poured round another is far the densest. Caverns, again, and subterraneous pits are of great use in keeping off the heat of the sun and that open air which preys upon bodies, and such are used in the north of Germany as granaries. The sinking of bodies in water has likewise the same effect, as I remember to have heard of bottles of wine being let down into a deep well to cool, but through accident or neglect being left there for many years, and then taken out; and that the wine not only was free from sourness or flatness, but tasted much finer, owing, it would seem, to a more exquisite commixture of its parts. And if the case require that bodies be let down to the bottom of the water, as in a river or the sea, without either touching the water or being enclosed in stopped vessels, but surrounded by air alone, there is good use in the vessel which has been sometimes employed for working under water on sunk ships whereby divers are enabled to remain a long while below, and take breath from time to time. This machine was a hollow bell made of metal which, being let down parallel to the surface of the water, carried with it to the bottom all the air it contained. It stood on three feet (like a tripod) the height of which was somewhat less than that of a man, so that the diver, when his breath failed, could put his head into the hollow of the bell, take breath, and then go on with his work. I have heard also of a sort of machine or boat capable of carrying men under water for some distance. Be that as it may, under such a vessel as I have described bodies of any sort can easily be suspended, and it is on that account that I have mentioned this experiment.

There is also another advantage in the careful and complete closing of bodies. For not only does it keep the outer air from getting in (of which I have already spoken), but also it keeps the spirit of the body, on which the operation is going on inside, from getting out. For it is necessary for one who operates on natural bodies to be certain of his total quantities, that is, that nothing evaporates or flows away. For then and then only are profound alterations made in bodies when, while nature prevents annihilation, art prevents also the loss or escape of any part. On this subject there has prevailed a false opinion which, if true, would make us well nigh despair of preserving the perfect quantity without diminution, namely, that the spirits of bodies, and air when rarefied by a high degree of heat, cannot be contained in closed vessels but escape through their more delicate pores. To this opinion men have been led by common experiment of an inverted cup placed on water with a candle in it or a piece of paper lighted; the consequence of which is that the water is drawn up; and also by the similar experiment of cupping glasses which when heated over flame draw up the flesh. For in each of these experiments they imagine that the rarefied air escapes, and that its quantity being thereby diminished, the water or flesh comes up into its place by the motion of connection. But this is altogether a mistake. For the air is not diminished in quantity, but contracted in space; nor does the motion of the rising of the water commence till the flame is extinguished or the air cooled. And therefore physicians, to make their cupping glasses draw better, lay on them cold sponges dipped in water. And therefore there is no reason why men should be much afraid of the easy escape of air or spirits. For though it be true that the most solid bodies have pores, still air or spirit do not easily submit to such extremely fine comminution, just as water refuses to run out at very small chinks.

With regard to the second of the seven modes of operating above mentioned, it is particularly to be observed that compression and such violent means have indeed, with respect to local motion and the like, a most powerful effect, as in machines and projectiles, an effect which even causes the destruction of organic bodies and of such virtues as consist altogether in motion. For all life, nay all flame and ignition, is destroyed by compression, just as every machine is spoiled or deranged by the same. It causes the destruction likewise of virtues which consist in the position and coarser dissimilarity of parts. This is the case with colors, for the whole flower has not the same color as when it is bruised, nor the whole piece of amber as the same piece pulverized. So also it is with tastes. For there is not the same taste in an unripe pear as there is in a squeezed and softened one, for it manifestly contracts sweetness by the process. But for the more remarkable transformations and alterations of bodies of uniform structure such violent means are of little avail, since bodies do not acquire thereby a new consistency that is constant and quiescent, but one that is transitory and ever striving to recover and liberate itself. It would not be amiss, however, to make some careful experiments for the purpose of ascertaining whether the condensation or the rarefaction of a body of nearly uniform structure (as air, water, oil, and the like), being induced by violence, can be made to be constant and fixed, and to become a kind of nature. This should first be tried by simple continuance, and then by means of helps and consents. And the trial might easily have been made (if it had but occurred to me) when I was condensing water, as mentioned above, by hammer and press, till it burst forth from its enclosure. For I should have left the flattened sphere to itself for a few days, and after that drawn off the water, that so I might have seen whether it would immediately occupy the same dimensions which it had before condensation. If it had not done so, either immediately or at any rate soon after, we might have pronounced the condensation a constant one; if it had, it would have appeared that a restoration had taken place and that the compression was transitory. Something of a similar kind I might have tried also with the expansion of air in the glass eggs. For after powerful suction I might have stopped them suddenly and tightly; I might have left the eggs so stopped for some days and then tried whether on opening the hole the air would be drawn up with a hissing noise, or whether on plunging them into water, as much water would be drawn up as there would have been at first without the delay. For it is probable — at least it is worth trying — that this might have been, and may be, the case; since in bodies of structure not quite so uniform the lapse of time does produce such effects. For a stick bent for some time by compression does not recoil, and this must not be imputed to any loss of quantity in the wood through the lapse of time, since the same will be the case with a plate of steel if the time be increased, and steel does not evaporate. But if the experiment succeed not with mere continuance, the business must not be abandoned, but other aids must be employed. For it is no small gain if by the application of violence we can communicate to bodies fixed and permanent natures. For thus air can be turned into water by condensation, and many other effects of the kind can be produced, man being more the master of violent motions than of the rest.

The third of the seven modes above-mentioned relates to that which, whether in nature or in art, is the great instrument of operation, viz., heat and cold. And herein man's power is clearly lame on one side. For we have the heat of fire which is infinitely more potent and intense than the heat of the sun as it reaches us, or the warmth of animals. But we have no cold save such as is to be got in wintertime, or in caverns, or by application of snow and ice, which is about as much perhaps in comparison as the heat of the sun at noon in the torrid zone, increased by the reflections of mountains and walls. For such heat as well as such cold can be endured by animals for a short time. But they are nothing to be compared to the heat of a burning furnace, or with any cold corresponding to it in intensity. Thus all things with us tend to rarefaction, and desiccation, and consumption; nothing hardly to condensation and inteneration except by mixtures and methods that may be called spurious. Instances of cold therefore should be collected with all diligence. And such it seems may be found by exposing bodies on steeples in sharp frosts; by laying them in subterranean caverns; by surrounding them with snow and ice in deep pits dug for the purpose; by letting them down into wells; by burying them in quicksilver and metals; by plunging them into waters which petrify wood; by burying them in the earth, as the Chinese are said to do in the making of porcelain, where masses made for the purpose are left, we are told, underground for forty or fifty years, and transmitted to heirs, as a kind of artificial minerals; and by similar processes. And so too all natural condensations caused by cold should be investigated, in order that, their causes being known, they may be imitated by art. Such we see in the sweating of marble and stones; in the dews condensed on the inside of windowpanes toward morning after a night's frost; in the formation and gathering of vapors into water under the earth, from which springs often bubble up. Everything of this kind should be collected.

Besides things which are cold to the touch, there are found others having the power of cold, which also condense, but which seem to act on the bodies of animals only, and hardly on others. Of this sort we have many instances in medicines and plasters, some of which condense the flesh and tangible parts, as astringent and inspissatory medicaments; while others condense the spirits, as is most observable in soporifics. There are two ways in which spirits are condensed by medicaments soporific, or provocative of sleep: one by quieting their motion, the other by putting them to flight. Thus violets, dried rose leaves, lettuce, and like benedict or benignant medicaments, by their kindly and gently cooling fumes invite the spirits to unite and quiet their eager and restless motion. Rose water, too, applied to the nose in a fainting fit, causes the resolved and too relaxed spirits to recover themselves and, as it were, cherishes them. But opiates and kindred medicaments put the spirits utterly to flight by their malignant and hostile nature. And therefore if they be applied to an external part, the spirits immediately flee away from that part and do not readily flow into it again; if taken internally, their fumes, ascending to the head, disperse in all directions the spirits contained in the ventricles of the brain; and these spirits thus withdrawing themselves, and unable to escape into any other part, are by consequence brought together and condensed, and sometimes are utterly choked and extinguished; though on the other hand these same opiates taken in moderation do by a secondary accident (namely, the condensation which succeeds the coming together) comfort the spirits and render them more robust, and check their useless and inflammatory motions; whereby they contribute no little to the cure of diseases and prolongation of life.

Nor should we omit the means of preparing bodies to receive cold. Among others I may mention that water slightly warm is more easily frozen than quite cold.

Besides, since nature supplies cold as sparingly, we must do as the apothecaries do who, when they cannot get a simple, take its succedaneum or quid pro quo, as they call it — such as aloes for balsam, cassia for cinnamon. In like manner we should look round carefully to see if there be anything that will do instead of cold, that is to say, any means by which condensations can be effected in bodies otherwise than by cold, the proper office of which is to effect them. Such condensations, as far as yet appears, would seem to be limited to four. The first of these is caused by simple compression, which can do but little for permanent density, since bodies recoil, but which perhaps may be of use as an auxiliary. The second is caused by the contraction of the coarser parts in a body after the escape of the finer, such as takes place in indurations by fire, in the repeated quenchings of metals, and like processes. The third is caused by the coming together of those homogeneous parts in a body which are the most solid, and which previously had been dispersed and mixed with the less solid; as in the restoration of sublimated mercury, which occupies a far greater space in powder than as simple mercury, and similarly in all purging of metals from their dross. The fourth is brought about through sympathy, by applying substances which from some occult power condense. These sympathies or consents at present manifest themselves but rarely, which is no wonder, since before we succeed in discovering forms and configurations we cannot hope for much from an inquiry into sympathies. With regard to the bodies of animals, indeed, there is no doubt that there are many medicines, whether taken internally or externally, which condense as it were by consent, as I have stated a little above. But in the case of inanimate substances such operation is rare. There has indeed been spread abroad, as well in books as in common rumor, the story of a tree in one of the Tercera or Canary Isles (I do not well remember which) which is constantly dripping, so as to some extent to supply the inhabitants with water. And Paracelsus says that the herb called Ros Solis is at noon and under a burning sun filled with dew, while all the other herbs round it are dry. But both of these stories I look upon as fabulous. If they were true, such instances would be of most signal use and most worthy of examination. Nor do I conceive that those honeydews, like manna, which are found on the leaves of the oak in the month of May, are formed and condensed by any peculiar property in the leaf of the oak, but while they fall equally on all leaves, they are retained on those of the oak as being well united and not spongy as most of the others are.

As regards heat, man indeed has abundant store and command thereof, but observation and investigation are wanting in some particulars, and those the most necessary, let the alchemists say what they will. For the effects of intense heat are sought for and brought into view, but those of a gentler heat, which fall in most with the ways of nature, are not explored and therefore are unknown. And therefore we see that by the heats generally used the spirits of bodies are greatly exalted, as in strong waters and other chemical oils; that the tangible parts are hardened and, the volatile being discharged, sometimes fixed; that the homogeneous parts are separated, while the heterogeneous are in a coarse way incorporated and mixed up together; above all, that the junctures of composite bodies and their more subtle configurations are broken up and confounded. Whereas the operations of a gentler heat ought to have been tried and explored, whereby more subtle mixtures and regular configurations might be generated and educed, after the model of nature and in imitation of the works of the sun — as I have shadowed forth in the Aphorism on Instances of Alliance. For the operations of nature are performed by far smaller portions at a time, and by arrangements far more exquisite and varied than the operations of fire, as we use it now. And it is then that we shall see a real increase in the power of man when by artificial heats and other agencies the works of nature can be represented in form, perfected in virtue, varied in quantity, and, I may add, accelerated in time. For the rust of iron is slow in forming, but the turning into Crocus Martis is immediate; and it is the same with verdigris and ceruse; crystal is produced by a long process, while glass is blown at once; stones take a long time to grow, while bricks are quickly baked. Meanwhile (to come to our present business), heats of every kind, with their effects, should be diligently collected from all quarters and investigated — the heat of heavenly bodies by their rays direct, reflected, refracted, and united in burning glasses and mirrors; the heat of lightning, of flame, of coal fire; of fire from different materials; of fire close and open, straitened and in full flow, modified in fine by the different structures of furnaces; of fire excited by blowing; of fire quiescent and not excited; of fire removed to a greater or less distance; of fire passing through various media; moist heats, as of a vessel floating in hot water, of dung, of external and internal animal warmth, of confined hay; dry heats, as of ashes, lime, warm sand; in short, heats of all kinds with their degrees.

But above all we must try to investigate and discover the effects and operations of heat when applied and withdrawn gradually, orderly, and periodically, at due distances and for due times. For such orderly inequality is in truth the daughter of the heavens and mother of generation; nor is anything great to be expected from a heat either vehement or precipitate or that comes by fits and starts. In vegetables this is most manifest; and also in the wombs of animals there is a great inequality of heat, from the motion, sleep, food, and passions of the female in gestation. Lastly, in the wombs of the earth itself, those I mean in which metals and fossils are formed, the same inequality has place and force. Which makes the unskillfulness of some alchemists of the reformed school all the more remarkable — who have conceived that by the equable warmth of lamps and the like, burning uniformly, they can attain their end. And so much for the operations and effects of heat. To examine them thoroughly would be premature, till the forms of things and the configurations of bodies have been further investigated and brought to light. For it will then be time to seek, apply, and adapt our instruments when we are clear as to the pattern.

The fourth mode of operating is by continuance, which is as it were the steward and almoner of nature. Continuance I call it when a body is left to itself for a considerable time, being meanwhile defended from all external force. For then only do the internal motions exhibit and perfect themselves when the extraneous and adventitious are stopped. Now the works of time are far subtler than those of fire. For wine cannot be so clarified by fire as it is by time; nor are the ashes produced by fire so fine as the dust into which substances are resolved and wasted by ages. So too the sudden incorporations and mixtures precipitated by fire are far inferior to those which are brought about by time. And the dissimilar and varied configurations which bodies by continuance put on, such as putrefactions, are destroyed by fire or any violent heat. Meanwhile it would not be out of place to observe that the motions of bodies when quite shut up have in them something of violence. For such imprisonment impedes the spontaneous motions of the body. And therefore continuance in an open vessel is best for separations; in a vessel quite closed for commixtures; in a vessel partly closed, but with the air entering, for putrefactions. But, indeed, instances showing the effects and operations of continuance should be carefully collected from all quarters.

The regulation of motion (which is the fifth mode of operating) is of no little service. I call it regulation of motion when one body meeting another impedes, repels, admits or directs its spontaneous motion. It consists for the most part in the shape and position of vessels. Thus the upright cone in alembics helps the condensation of vapors; the inverted cone in receivers helps the draining off of the dregs of sugar. Sometimes a winding form is required, and one that narrows and widens in turn, and the like. For all percolation depends on this, that the meeting body opens the way to one portion of the body met and shuts it to another. Nor is the business of percolation or other regulation of motion always performed from without. It may also be done by a body within a body, as when stones are dropped into water to collect the earthy parts; or when syrups are clarified with the whites of eggs that the coarser parts may adhere thereto, after which they may be removed. It is also to this regulation of motion that Telesius has rashly and ignorantly enough attributed the shapes of animals, which he says are owing to the channels and folds in the womb. But he should have been able to show the like formation in the shells of eggs, in which there are no wrinkles or inequalities. It is true, however, that the regulation of motion gives the shapes in molding and casting.

Operations by consents or aversions (which is the sixth mode) often lie deeply hid. For what are called occult and specific properties, or sympathies and antipathies, are in great part corruptions of philosophy. Nor can we have much hope of discovering the consents of things before the discovery of forms and simple configurations. For consent is nothing else than the adaptation of forms and configurations to each other.

The broader and more general consents of things are not, however, quite so obscure. I will therefore begin with them. Their first and chief diversity is this, that some bodies differ widely as to density and rarity but agree in configurations, while others agree as to density and rarity but differ in configurations. For it has not been ill observed by the chemists in their triad of first principles that sulphur and mercury run through the whole universe. (For what they add about salt is absurd, and introduced merely to take in bodies earthy, dry, and fixed.) But certainly in these two one of the most general consents in nature does seem to be observable. For there is consent between sulphur, oil, and greasy exhalation, flame, and perhaps the body of a star. So is there between mercury, water and watery vapors, air, and perhaps the pure and intersidereal ether. Yet these two quaternions or great tribes of things (each within its own limits) differ immensely in quantity of matter and density, but agree very well in configuration; as appears in numerous cases. On the other hand metals agree well together in quantity and density, especially as compared with vegetables, etc., but differ very widely in configuration; while in like manner vegetables and animals vary almost infinitely in their configurations, but in quantity of matter or density their variation is confined to narrow limits.

The next most general consent is that between primary bodies and their supports, that is, their menstrua and foods. We must therefore inquire, under what climates, in what earth, and at what depth, the several metals are generated; and so of gems, whether produced on rocks or in mines; also in what soil the several trees and shrubs and herbs thrive best and take, so to speak, most delight; moreover what manurings, whether by dung of any sort, or by chalk, sea sand, ashes, etc., do the most good; and which of them are most suitable and effective according to the varieties of soil. Again, the grafting and inoculating of trees and plants, and the principle of it, that is to say, what plants prosper best on what stocks, depends much on sympathy. Under this head it would be an agreeable experiment, which I have heard has been lately tried, of engrafting forest trees (a practice hitherto confined to fruit trees), whereby the leaves and fruit are greatly enlarged and the trees made more shady. In like manner the different foods of animals should be noted under general heads, and with their negatives. For carnivorous animals cannot live on herbs, whence the order of Feuillans (though the will in man has more power over the body than in other animals) has after trial (they say) well nigh disappeared, the thing not being endurable by human nature. Also the different materials of putrefaction, whence animalculae are generated, should be observed.

The consents of primary bodies with their subordinates (for such those may be considered which I have noted) are sufficiently obvious. To these may be added the consents of the senses with their objects. For these consents, since they are most manifest and have been well observed and keenly sifted, may possibly shed great light on other consents also which are latent.

But the inner consents and aversions, or friendships and enmities, of bodies (for I am almost weary of the words sympathy and antipathy on account of the superstitions and vanities associated with them) are either falsely ascribed, or mixed with fables, or from want of observation very rarely met with. For if it be said that there is enmity between the vine and colewort, because when planted near each other they do not thrive, the reason is obvious — that both of these plants are succulent and exhaust the ground, and thus one robs the other. If it be said that there is consent and friendship between corn and the corn cockle or the wild poppy, because these herbs hardly come up except in ploughed fields, it should rather be said that there is enmity between them, because the poppy and corn cockle are emitted and generated from a juice of the earth which the corn has left and rejected; so that sowing the ground with corn prepares it for their growth. And of such false ascriptions there is a great number. As for fables, they should be utterly exterminated. There remains indeed a scanty store of consents which have been approved by sure experiment, such as those of the magnet and iron, of gold and quicksilver, and the like. And in chemical experiments on metals there are found also some others worthy of observation. But they are found in greatest abundance (if one may speak of abundance in such a scarcity) in certain medicines which by their occult (as they are called) and specific properties have relation either to limbs, or humors, or diseases, or sometimes to individual natures. Nor should we omit the consents between the motions and changes of the moon and the affections of bodies below, such as may be gathered and admitted, after strict and honest scrutiny, from experiments in agriculture, navigation, medicine, and other sciences. But the rarer all the instances of more secret consents are, the greater the diligence with which they should be sought after, by means of faithful and honest traditions and narrations; provided this be done without any levity or credulity, but with an anxious and (so to speak) a doubting faith. There remains a consent of bodies, inartificial perhaps in mode of operation, but in use a polychrest, which should in no wise be omitted, but examined into with careful attention. I mean the proneness or reluctance of bodies to draw together or unite by composition or simple apposition. For some bodies are mixed together and incorporated easily, but others with difficulty and reluctance. Thus powders mix best with water, ashes and lime with oils, and so on. Nor should we merely collect instances of the propensity or aversion of bodies for mixture, but also of the collocation of their parts, of their distribution and digestion when they are mixed, and finally of their predominancy after the mixture is completed.

There remains the seventh and last of the seven modes of operation, namely, the means of operating by the alternation of the former six. But it would not be seasonable to bring forward examples of this till our search has been carried somewhat more deeply into the others singly. Now a series or chain of such alternations, adapted to particular effects, is a thing at once most difficult to discover and most effective to work with. But men are utterly impatient both of the inquiry and the practice, though it is the very thread of the labyrinth as regards works of any magnitude. Let this suffice to exemplify the polychrest instances.