Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/218

90 differing in colour, which otherwise resemble most, as the white and blue violets, and the several veins of one agate or marble, by reason that other virtues consist in more subtile proportions than colours do; and yet are there virtues and natures which require a grosser magnitude than colours, as well as scents and divers other require a more subtile; for as the portion of a body will give forth scent, which is too small to be seen; so the portion of a body will show colours, which is too small to be endued with weight: and therefore one of the prophets with great elegancy describing how all creatures carry no proportion towards God the creator, saith, "That all the nations in respect of him are like the dust upon the balance;" which is a thing appeareth, but weigheth not. But to return, there resteth a further freeing of this sixth direction: for the clearness of a river or stream showeth white at a distance, and crystalline glasses deliver the face or any other object falsified in whiteness, and long beholding the snow to a weak eye giveth an impression of azure, rather than of whiteness. So as for whiteness in apparition only, and representation, by the qualifying of the light, altering the intermedium, or affecting the eye itself, it reacheth not. But you must free your direction to the producing of such an incidence, impression, or operation, as may cause a precise and determinate passion of the eye, a matter which is much more easy to induce than that which we have passed through; but yet because it hath a full coherence both with that act of radiation, which hath hitherto been conceived and termed so unproperly and untruly, by some, an effluxion of spiritual species, and by others, an investing of the intermedium, with a motion which successively is conveyed to the eye, and with the act of sense, wherein I should likewise open that which I think good to withdraw, I will omit.

Neither do I contend, but that this notion, which I call the freeing of a direction in the received philosophies, as far as a swimming anticipation could take hold, might be perceived and discerned; being not much other matter than that which they did not only aim at in the two rules of axioms before remembered, but more nearly also than that which they term the form or formal cause, or that which they call the true difference; both which, nevertheless, it seemeth they propound rather as impossibilities and wishes, than as things within the compass of human comprehension: for Plato casteth his burden, and saith, "that he will revere him as a God, that can truly divide and define:" which cannot be but by true forms and differences, wherein I join hands with him. confessing as much, as yet assuming to myself little; for if any man can, by the strength of His anticipations, find out forms, I will magnify him with the foremost. But as any of them would say, that if divers things, which many men know by instruction and observation, another knew by revelation, and without those means, they would take him for somewhat supernatural and divine; so I do acknowledge that if any man can by anticipations reach to that which a weak and inferior wit may attain to by interpretation, he cannot receive too high a title. Nay, I for my part do indeed admire to see how far some of them have proceeded by their anticipations; but how? it is as I wonder at some blind men, to see what shift they make without their eye-sight; thinking with myself that if I were blind, I could hardly do it. Again, Aristotle's school confesseth, that there is no true knowledge but by causes, no true cause but the form, no true form known except one, which they are pleased to allow; and therefore thus far their evidence standeth with us, that both hitherto there hath been nothing but a shadow of knowledge, and that we propound now that which is agreed to be worthiest to be sought, and hardest to be found. There wanteth now a part very necessary, not by way of supply, but by way of caution: for as it is seen for the most part, that the outward tokens and badge of excellency and perfection are more incident to things merely counterfeit, than to that which is true, but for a meaner and baser sort: as a dubline is more like a perfect ruby than a spinel, and a counterfeit angel is made more like a true angel, than if it were an angel coined of China gold; in like manner, the direction carrieth a resemblance of a true direction in verity and liberty, which indeed is no direction at all. For though your direction seem to be certain and free, by pointing you to nature that is unseparable from the nature you inquire upon; yet if it do not carry you on a degree or remove nearer to action, operation, or light, to make or produce, it is but superficial and counterfeit. Wherefore to secure and warrant what is a true direction, though that general note I have given be perspicuous in itself, for a man shall soon cast with himself, whether he be ever the near to effect and operate or no, or whether he have won but an abstract or varied notion, yet for better instruction I will deliver three particular notes of caution. The first is, that the nature discovered be more original than the nature supposed, and not more secondary or of the like degree; as to make a stone bright, or to make it smooth, it is a good direction to say make it even; but to make a stone even, it is no good direction to say, make it bright, or make it smooth; for the rule is, that the disposition of any thing referring to the state of it in itself, of the parts, is more original than that which is relative or transitive towards another thing. So evenness is the disposition of the stone in itself, but smooth is to the hand, and bright to the eye, and yet nevertheless they all cluster and concur; and yet the direction is more unperfect, if it do