NOTES

NOTE A.

I THOUGHT it better not to interrupt the reader with notes during the progress of the foregoing argument, but as some points are assumed in it upon which I shall have to express a different opinion hereafter, it may be well to notice them here; the rather because I fully concur in the conclusion notwithstanding.

1. It is assumed that the first book of Valerius Terminus was designed to comprehend a general survey of knowledge, such as forms the subject of the second book of the Advancement of Learning and of the last eight books of the De Augmentis Scientiarum, as well as the general reflexions and precepts, which form the subject of the first book of the Novum Organum ; -to comprehend in short the whole first part of the Instauratio, together with the introductory portion of the second.

This is inferred from the description of the "Inventary" which was to be contained in the tenth chapter of Valerius Terminus, as compared with the contents of the second book of the Advancement of Learning.

Now my impression is that this Inventary would have corresponded, not to the second book of the Advancement, but only to a certain Inventarium opum humanarum which is there, and also in the De Augmentis (iii. 5), set down as a desideratum ; and which was to be, not a general survey of all the departments of knowledge, but merely an appendix to one particular department; that, namely, which is called in the Advancement Naturalis Magia, sive Physica operativa major;1 and in the Catalogus De

1 See margin. It is to be observed that in Montagu's edition of the Advancement the titles in the margin are by some strange negligence omitted; so that the correspondence between the two Inventaries was the more easily overlooked.

sideratorum at the end of the De Augmentis, Magia Naturalis, sive Deductio formarum ad opera.

The grounds of this conclusion will be explained fully in their proper place. It is enough at present to mark the point as disputable; and to observe that if this argument fails, there seems to be no reason for thinking that anything corresponding to the first part of the Instauratio entered into the design of Valerius Terminus; also that the principal ground here alleged for concluding that Valerius Terminus was written some time before the Advancement -a conclusion which involves one considerable difficulty is taken away.

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2. It is assumed also that Valerius Terminus was not to contain anything corresponding to the last four parts of the Instauratio, but was to be merely a statement of Bacon's method, without professing to give either the collection of facts to which the method was to be applied, or the results thereby obtained." This appears to be inferred chiefly from the title — viz. “Of the Interpretation of Nature."

Now it seems to me that this argument proves too much. For I find the same title given to another unfinished work - the Temporis Partus Masculus — of which we happen to know that it was meant to be in three books; the first to be entitled Perpolitio et applicatio mentis; the second, Lumen Naturæ, seu formula Interpretationis; the third, Natura illuminata, sive Veritas Rerum. The first would have corresponded therefore to the first book of the Novum Organum; the second, being a statement of the new method, to the second and remaining books; the third, being a statement of the application of the new method, to the sixth and last part of the Instauratio. It would seem from this that when Bacon designed the Temporis Partus Masculus, he had conceived the idea of a work embracing the entire field of the Instauratio, (the first part only excepted), though less fully developed and differently distributed. And I see no sufficient reason for supposing that the design of the Valerius Terminus was less extensive.

3. "The Temporis Partus Masculus published by Gruter is spoken of as probably or possibly "the same as the Temporis Partus Maximus mentioned by Bacon in his letter to Fulgenzio," and if so, the earliest of all his writings.

1 See my note at the end of Mr. Ellis's preface to Valerius Terminus.

Now the writing or rather collection of writings here alluded to is that published not by Gruter but by M. Bouillet; in whose edition of the "Euvres Philosophiques" the title Temporis Partus Masculus is prefixed to four distinct pieces. 1. A short prayer. 2. A fragment headed Aphorismi et Consilia de auxiliis mentis et accensione luminis naturalis. 3. A short piece entitled De Interpretatione Naturæ sententiæ duodecim. 4. A fragment in two chapters headed Tradendi modus legitimus. It is true that from the manner in which M. Bouillet has printed them, any one would suppose that he had Gruter's authority for collecting them all under the same general title. But it is not so. In Gruter's Scripta philosophica the title Temporis Partus Masculus appears in connexion with the first, and the first only. The last has indeed an undoubted claim to it upon other and better authority. But I can find no authority whatever for giving it to the other two. If therefore the resemblance of the names be thought a sufficient reason for identifying the Partus Masculus with the Partus Maximus, that identity must be understood as belonging to the first and fourth only. The grounds of that opinion and of my own dissent from it will be discussed in the proper place. With regard to the argument now in hand,(viz. whether Bacon, when he wrote the Temporis Partus Masculus, had yet thought of producing a great work like the Instauratio)—it is enough perhaps to observe that at whatever period or periods of his life these four pieces were composed, they all belong to the second part of the Instauratio; not as prefaces or prospectuses, but as portions of the work itself; and that if none of them contain any allusion to the other parts, the same may be said of the first book of the Novum Organum itself; and therefore that we cannot be warranted in concluding from that fact that the plan of the Instauratio had not yet been conceived.

4. It is assumed that the work which Bacon contemplated when he wrote the De Interpretatione Naturæ Proœmium would not have contained the new method and its results (these being, according to his then intention, to be communicated only to chosen followers), but merely the general views of science which form the subject of the first book of the Novum Organum.

This seems to be gathered from what he says in the Prooemium concerning the manner in which the several parts of the work were to be published: "Publicandi autem ista ratio ea est, ut quæ

ad ingeniorum correspondentias captandas et mentium areas purgandas pertinent, edantur in vulgus et per ora volitent: reliqua per manus tradantur cum electione et judicio:" the "reliqua" being, as appears a little further on, "ipsa Interpretationis formula et inventa per eandem: " from which it seems to be inferred that the exposition of the new method was not only not to be published along with the rest of the work, but to be excluded from it altogether; to be kept as a secret, and transmitted orally. The grounds of this opinion I shall examine more particularly in a subsequent note with reference to another question. The question with which we are now dealing is only whether at that time Bacon can be supposed to have "thought of producing a great work like the Instauratio:" upon which I will only say that as an intention not to publish does not imply an intention not to write, so neither does an intention to write imply an intention to publish. And since there is nothing in the Partis secunda Delineatio from which we can infer that even then he intended to publish the whole, I do not see how we can infer that the design of composing a great work like the Instauratio had been conceived in the interval between the writing of these two pieces. For as in the one case he may not have intended to publish what we know he did intend to write, so in the other he may have intended to write what we know he did not intend to publish. And indeed though the Prooemium stands in Gruter's volume by itself and we cannot know to which of Bacon's projected works on the Interpretation of Nature it was meant to be prefixed, there is none which it seems to fit so well as the Temporis Partus Masculus. Now the Temporis Partus Masculus, as we know from the titles of the three books above quoted, was to contain both the formula Interpretationis and the inventa per eandem.

All these points will be considered more at large when I come to state the grounds upon which I have assigned to each tract its place in this edition. In the meantime I am unwilling to let any conclusion of importance appear to rest upon them; and in the present case all inferences which are in any way dependent upon the assumptions which I have noticed as questionable may I think be freely dispensed with. That to bring in a new method of Induction was Bacon's central idea and original design, and that the idea of an Instauratio Magna came after, may in the absence of

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all evidence to the contrary be safely enough inferred from his own words in the Advancement of Learning; where after reporting a deficiency of the first magnitude in that department of knowledge which concerns the invention of sciences, ficiency proved by the barrenness and accounted for by the viciousness and incompetency of the method of induction then in use, — he adds, “This part of Invention, concerning the Invention of Sciences, I purpose, if God give me leave, hereafter to propound; having digested into two parts; whereof the one I term Experientia Literata, and the other Interpretatio Naturæ ; 1 the former being but a degree and rudiment of the latter. But I will not dwell too long nor speak too great upon a promise." This "Interpretatio Natura" can have been nothing else therefore than a new method of induction to supply the place of the vicious and incompetent method then in use; and since among all the reported" deficiencies" this is the only one which he himself proposes to supply, — for of the others he merely gives specimens to make his meaning clear, we may, I think, safely conclude that this and no other was the great work which he was meditating when he wrote the Advancement of Learning. His expressions moreover seem to imply that this work was already begun and in progress; and seeing that the Valerius Terminus answers the description both in title and (so far as the first book goes, which is all we know of it) in contents also, why may we not suppose that it was a commencement or a sketch of the very work he speaks of, and that of the fragment which has been preserved part was written before and part after? a supposition probable enough in itself, and by which at least one difficulty, which I shall mention hereafter, is effectually removed.

As an additional reason for thinking that the idea of the Instauratio Magna was of later date than that of a work on the Interpretation of Nature, I may observe that the name Instauratio does not occur in any of Bacon's letters earlier than 1609. The earliest of his compositions in which it appears was probably the Partis Instaurationis secundæ Delineatio et Argumentum; but of this the date cannot be fixed with any certainty; and as Gruter is our only authority for it, and the word Instauratio appears in the

1 The corresponding passage in the De Augmentis calls it "Interpretatio Naturæ sive Novum Organum.”

2 See my note at the end of Mr. Ellis's Preface to the Valerius Terminus.