The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

444 FABLE OF CUPID.
(which begets a whole,) but from the force and also, that in colder regions the feebleness of the
curb of the opposite nature. That the diversity, heat is sometimes compensated by the delay and
multiplicity, and even perplexity of operation is length of the summer days; but that the power
owing altogether to one of these three; the power and efficacy of the mean is remarkable in the conof heat, the arrangement of the matter, or the veyance of heat. For that hence, the temperature
mode of its reduction: which three have, never- of the seasons is very various, so that the atmotheless, an inherent and mutual connexion and sphere is found, by an inconstancy that is discocausality. That heat itself differs in power, verable, to be sometimes cold in summer days,
quantity, speed, mean, and succession: that suc- sometimes moist in winter days, the sun in the
cession itself is varied in most bodies by tendency mean while preserving his legitimate course and
to approach or recede, whether by greater or less ordinary distance; that the corn and vine are
effort, by sudden motion, by gradual, or by return more changed by the south winds and a stormy
or repetition through greater and less intervals, sky; and that the whole position and emission
and by changes of this kind. That calorics are, of the atmosphere, at one time pestilential and
therefore, of a vast diversity in their nature and morbid, at another genial and healthful, according
power, according to their purity and impurity, to the various revolutions of the year, has its rise
respect being had to their first source, the sun. from this, namely, from the varying of the medium
Nor does heat cherish every kind of heat: but of the air, which gathers its diverse disposition
after they differ mutually a good number of de- from the very vicissitude and alteration of the
grees, they mutually destroy themselves not less seasons, perhaps in a long series. But that, as
than cold natures, and assume their peculiar there is a multifold ratio, so is there a very great
powers of action, and are opposed to the acts the virtue of the succession of heat, and of the order
one of the other; so that Telesius makes the less in which heat follows heat. For that the sun
with respect to the much greater caloric natures could not send out so numerous and prolific a
to hold the place as it were of traitors and con- generation, unless the configuration of the body
spirators with the cold against them. And so of the sun moving toward the earth, and the parts
that vivid heat, which is in fire and darts, utterly of the earth, were a partaker of the very great
destroys that slight heat which seems to glide inequality and variation; for the sun is moved
secretly in water; and in like manner the preter- both in a circle and rapidly, and obliquely, and
natural heat of putrid humours, suffocates and recalls itself, so as to be both absent and present,
extinguishes natural heat: but that there is a both nearer and more remote, and more perpendigreat difference as to the fulness of a body of heat, cular and more oblique, and returning swifter and
is too plain to need explanation. For one or two slower, so as that the heat emanating from the
coals of fire do not throw out such a warmth as sun is never the same, nor ever recovers itself in
many do together; and that the effect of the ful- a little while, (excepting under the tropics;) so
ness of heat is remarkably shown in the multipli- that so great a variation of the power generating
cation of the sun's heat through the reflection admirably agrees with this so great variation in
of his rays; for the number of his rays is dou- that which is generated. To which can be added
bled through simple reflection, multiplied though the very diverse nature of the medium or vehicle.
various. But to the quantity or copiousness of That the other circumstances asserted of the incheat, there should be ascribed or added also its quality and degrees of heat alone, can be referred
union, which is best seen by the obliquity and to the vicissitudes and varieties of succession in
perpendicular of rays, with which the nearer the different heats. That Aristotle, therefore, rightly
direct and reflex ray meets, and toward the acuter attributed the generation and corruption of things
angles, the greater degree of heat it sends forth to the oblique path of the sun, making that as it
in proportion. Nay, even the sun himself, when were their efficient cause, if he had not indeed
amongst those greater and more potent fires of the corrupted the truth he discovered, through his
fixed stars, the Serpent, the Dogstar, Spica, emit unbounded rage for uttering decisions and of
greater heat. But that the delay of heat is evi- making himself the lawgiver of nature, and of
dently an operation of the greatest moment, since adapting and of settling all things so as to make
all the influences of nature have respect to times, them harmonize with his dogmas. For that he
so as that some time is required to the putting its ought to have assigned generation and corruption
influences into action, and a considerable time to (which is never entirely privative, but is producthe giving them strength. That so the delay of tive of a second generation) to the inequality of
heat turns equal heat into progressive and unequal, the sun's heat, according to the whole that is of
because the antecedent and subsequent heat is the approaching and receding of the sun jointly,
joined at the same time; that that is apparent in not the generation to the approaching, the corthe autumnal heats, because they are perceived to ruption to the receding separately, which he did,
be more ardent in the solstitial heats, and in the blunderingly and following the vulgar error. But
atRernoons of summer, because they are found to if any should think it strange that the generation
be more ardent in the middays of those seasons; of things is attributed to the sun, when it is