of the Forms "quibus hominum contemplationes et cogitationes hactenus assueverunt." 1

As Bacon uses the word in his own sense, we must endeavour to interpret the passages in which it occurs by means of what he has himself said of it; and this may I think be satisfactorily accomplished.

We may begin by remarking that in Bacon's system, as in those of many others, the relation of substance and attribute is virtually the same as the relation of cause and effect. The substance is conceived of as the causa immanens of its attributes, or in other words it is the formal cause of the qualities which are referred to it. As there is a difference between the properties of different substances, there must be a corresponding difference between the substances themselves. But in the first state of the views of which we are speaking this latter difference is altogether unimaginable: "distincte quidem intelligi potest, sed non explicari imaginabiliter." 3 It belongs not to natural philosophy, but to metaphysics.

These views however admit of an essential modification. If we divide the qualities of bodies into two classes, and ascribe those of the former class to substance as its essential attributes, while we look on those of the latter as connected with substance by the relation of cause and effect- that is, if we recognise the distinction of primary and secondary qualities the state of the question is changed. It now becomes possible to give a definite answer to the question, Wherein

1 Nov. Org. ii. 17.

2 See Zimmerman's Essay on the Monadology of Leibnitz, p. 86. (Vienna, 1807).

8 Leibnitz, De ipsâ Naturâ.

does the difference between different substances, corresponding to the difference between their sensible qualities, consist?

The answer to this question of course involves a reference to the qualities which have been recognised as primary; and we are thus led to the principle that in the sciences which relate to the secondary qualities of bodies the primary ones are to be regarded as the causes of the secondary.1

This division of the qualities of bodies into two classes is the point of transition from the metaphysical view from which we set out to that of ordinary physical science. And this transition Bacon had made, though not perhaps with a perfect consciousness of having done so. Thus he has repeatedly denied the truth of the scholastic doctrine that Forms are incognoscible because supra-sensible; 2 and the reason of this is clearly that his conception of the nature of Forms relates merely to the primary qualities of bodies. For instance, the Form of heat is a kind of local motion of the particles of which bodies are composed,3 and that of whiteness a mode of arrangement among those particles. This peculiar motion or arrangement corresponds to and engenders heat or whiteness, and this in every case in which those qualities exist. The statement of the distinguishing character of the motion or arrangement, or of whatever else may be the Form of a given phenomenon, takes the shape of a law; it is the law in fulfilling which any substance determines the existence of the quality in question. It is for this

1 Whewell, Phil. Ind. Science, [book iv. ch. i.]

2 See Scaliger, Exercit. in Cardan.

8 [Nov. Org. ii. 20.]

4 [Valerius Terminus, ii. 1.]

reason that Bacon sometimes calls the Form a law; he has done this particularly in a passage which will be mentioned a little farther on.

With the view which has now been stated, we shall I think be able to understand every passage in which Bacon speaks of Forms; - remembering however that as he has not traced a boundary line between primary and secondary qualities, we can only say in general terms that his doctrine of Forms is founded upon the theory that certain qualities of bodies are merely subjective and phenomenal, and are to be regarded as necessarily resulting from others which belong to substance as its essential attributes. In the passage from which we set out, the Form is spoken of as vera differentia, the true or essential difference, naturans and as the fons emanationis. these expressions refers to the theory of definition by genus and difference. The difference is that which gives the thing defined its specific character. If it be founded on an accidental circumstance, the definition, though not incorrect if the accident be an inseparable one, will nevertheless not express the true and essential character of its subject; contrariwise, if it involve a statement of the formal cause of the thing defined.

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as natura The first of

The second of these phrases is now scarcely used, except in connexion with the philosophy of Spinoza. It had however been employed by some of the scholastic writers. It is always antithetical to natura naturata, and in the passage before us serves not inaptly to ex

1 [Nov. Org. ii. 1.]

2 See Vossius, De Vitiis Serm. in voce Naturare; and Castanæus, Distinctiones in voc. Natura.

press the relation in which the Form stands to the phenomenal nature which results from it.

The phrase fons emanationis does not seem to require any explanation. It belongs to the kind of philosophical language which attempts, more or less successfully, to give clearness of conception by means of metaphor. It is unnecessary to remark how much this is the case in the later development of scholasticism.

A little farther on in the second book of the Novum Organum than the passage we have been considering, - namely in the thirteenth aphorism, - Bacon asserts that the "forma rei" is "ipsissima res," and that the thing and its Form differ only as " apparens et existens, aut exterius et interius, aut in ordine ad hominem et in ordine ad universum." Here the subjective and phenomenal character of the qualities whose form is to be determined is distinctly and strongly indicated.

The principal passage in which the Form is spoken of as a law occurs in the second aphorism of the same book. It is there said that, although in nature nothing really exists (vere existat) except "corpora individua edentia actus puros individuos ex lege," yet that in doctrine this law is of fundamental importance, and that it and its clauses (paragraphi) are what he means when he speaks of Forms.

In denying the real existence of anything beside individual substances, Bacon opposes himself to the scholastic realism; in speaking of these substances as "edentia actus," he asserts the doctrine of the essential activity of substance; by adding the epithet "puros" he separates what Aristotle termed évreλéxecat from mere motions or Kues, thereby by implication denying the objective reality of the latter; and, lastly, by using the

word "individuos," he implies that though in contemplation and doctrine the form law of the substance (that is, the substantial form) is resoluble into the forms of the simple natures which belong to it, as into clauses, yet that this analysis is conceptual only, and not real.

It will be observed that the two modes in which Bacon speaks of the Form, namely as ipsissima res and as a law, differ only, though they cannot be reconciled, as two aspects of the same object.

Thus much of the character of the Baconian Form. That it is after all only a physical conception appears sufficiently from the examples already mentioned, and from the fact of its being made the most important part of the subject-matter of the natural sciences.

The investigation of the Forms of natures or abstract qualities is the principal object of the Baconian method of induction. It is true that Bacon, although he gives the first place to investigations of this nature, does not altogether omit to mention as a subordinate part of science, the study of concrete substances. The first aphorism of the second book of the Novum Organum sufficiently explains the relation in which, as he conceived, the abstract and the concrete, considered as objects of science, ought to stand to one another. This relation corresponds to that which in the De Augmentis [iii. 4.], he had sought to establish between Physique and Metaphysique, and which he has there expressed by saying that the latter was to be conversant with the formal and final causes, while the former was to be confined to the efficient cause and to the material. may be asked, and the question is not easily answered, Of what use the study of concrete bodies was in Ba

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