LI

Among Prerogative Instances I will put in the twenty-seventh and last place Instances of Magic, by which I mean those wherein the material or efficient cause is scanty or small as compared with the work and effect produced. So that even where they are common they seem like miracles; some at first sight, others even after attentive consideration. These, indeed, nature of herself supplies sparingly, but what she may do when her folds have been shaken out, and after the discovery of forms and processes and configurations, time will show. But these magical effects (according to my present conjecture) are brought about in three ways: either by self-multiplication, as in fire, and in poisons called specific, and also in motions which are increased in power by passing from wheel to wheel; or by excitation or invitation in another body, as in the magnet, which excites numberless needles without losing any of its virtue, or in yeast and the like; or by anticipation of motion, as in the case already mentioned of gunpowder and cannons and mines. Of which ways the two former require a knowledge of consents, the third a knowledge of the measurement of motions. Whether there be any mode of changing bodies per minima (as they call it) and of transposing the subtler configurations of matter (a thing required in every sort of transformation of bodies) so that art may be enabled to do in a short time that which nature accomplishes by many windings, is a point on which I have at present no sure indications. And as in matters solid and true I aspire to the ultimate and supreme, so do I forever hate all things vain and tumid, and do my best to discard them.