The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

450 FABLE OF CUPID.
sources of acting forms only and influences, for there for the denying and refuting of a vacuumI;
that matter is not simply but altogether destitute and drawing out and enlarging these in such a
of active influence. And these assertions flow manner as that the ens may appear to keep that
from an incredible error, unless the miracle be re- contiguity by being placed in a certain light
moved by its having been an inveterate and gene- necessity; but that if they were very much
ral opinion. Forthereis scarcely any error similar agitated they would admit a vacuum; as in
than that a person should not deem the active in- water hourglasses, in which if there be rather a
fluence that virtue infused into matter, (through small aperture through which the water can
which it is kept from decay, so that the very least descend, they will want a spiracle for the water
portion of matter is not buried in the whole bulk to descend; but if a larger foramen even without
of the world, nor destroyed by the power of all a spiracle, the water being incumbent with a
the active influences, or in any way annihilated, greater bulk on the foramen, and in no way imand can be reduced to order; nay, can occupy a peding the vacuum above, is carried downwards.
portion of space and preserve resistance with im- So in bellows, in which if you compress and shut
penetrable dimension, and itself by turns be capa- them so that there be left no place for the air to
ble of some action, and not forsake itself.) When, glide in, and you afterward elevate and expand
on the contrary, it is by far the most potent of all them, if the skin of the bellows be slight and
influences, and evidently insuperable, and, as it weak, it will break, not so if very thick and firm;
were, a mere fate and necessity. Yet this virtue and other experiments in like manner. But these
Telesius does not attempt to refer to heat or cold. experiments are neither exactly proved, nor are
And rightly so: for neither do fire or numbness they quite satisfactory, nor conclusive on the
and congelation add or detract any thing from it question, and though Telesius thinks he adds to
nor have any power over it, when it yet meanwhile discoveries by means of them, and endeavours
flourishes in the sun, at the centre of the earth, after a more subtle discernment of what others
and everywhere. But he seems to fail, in that have seen but confusedly, yet he does not come
he recognises a certain and defined bulk of mat- off equal to his subject, nor educe a true concluter, is blind to that influence which should defend sion, but fails in the means: the misfortune,
itself and preserve itself in its several parts, and indeed, of Telesius and the Peripatetics, who in
(as it were, be clouded in the darkest shades of looking into experiments are like owls, not
the Peripatetics) puts that in the place of an ac- through the inefficiency of their faculties, but
cessory, when it is mainly the principal, poising through the cataracts of opinions and impatience
its own body, removing another, solid and ada- of fixed and full contemplation. But the very
nantine in itself, and whence emanate by an difficult question how far a vacuum is to be adinviolable authority the decrees of the possible and mitted, and with respect to what spaces there can
the impossible. In the same manner the vulgar be a coition or separation of seeds, and what there
school puerilely catches at it with an easy grasp is on this head that is peremptory and invariable,
of words, imagining that the judgment is satisfied I leave to my dissertation on the vacuum. Nor
by making a canon of the impossibility of two does it relate much to my present purpose whether
bodies occupying the same space, but does not nature utterly abhors a vacuum, or (as Telesius
take into actual and full consideration that influ- imagines himself to speak more accurately) entience and the measure of which we speak; over- ties deli:ght in mutual contact. This we hold to
looking how much depends upon it, and how great be plain that whether it be avoidance of a vacuum
a light would thence be thrown upon science. or inclination to contact does not in any degree
But to our point, that influence, whatever is its depend on heat and cold, nor does Telesius assert
nature, is not comprehended in the elements of thatit doth, nor can it be so ascribed from any apTelesius. We must now pass to that influence pearance in the things themselves: since matter
itself, which is, as it were, the antistrophe to this moved from its place attracts doubtless other
former, tihatnamely which preserves the connexion matter, whether that be hot or cold, liquid or dry,
of matter. For as matter will not suffer itself to hard or soft, friendly or adverse, so that a warm
be overwhelmed and perish by matter, so neither would sooner attract the coldest body to come to
can it be separated from matter. And yet it is it, than suffer itself to be disjoined from and
very doubtful whether this law of nature is equally deserted by every kind of body. For the bond of
peremptory with that other. matter is stronger than the aversion of heat and
But Telesius like Democritus supposed a cold: and the sequacity of matter has no respec
vacuum heaped together and unbounded, that to the diversity of special forms; and so thieach ens singly might lay down its contiguous influence of connexion is by no means from thos
ens, and sometimes desert it involuntarily and elements of heat and cold. The two influence
with difficulty, (as they say,) but with a greater that are mutually opposite follow, which confe
and a subdued violence, and he endeavoured to red (as may be seen) this rule of elements up' I
demonstrate this by sundry experiments, adducing heat and cold, but by a right badly explicatt.d.
especially those things which are cited here and I mean those influences through which entities