Aphorism 1.1

[157] Human beings are the executives and interpreters of nature. We are constrained by nature’s orders: we can do only what we have observed in reality, and we can understand only what we have observed with our minds. Beyond this, we can do nothing, and know nothing.

Idols of the tribe have their root in human nature, or the tribe or race of humans. So it is false to say that human sensation is the measure of things. [n.14] Quite the contrary, all perceptions, whether of the senses or of the mind, are relative to the person, not [164] to the universe. The human understanding is like an uneven mirror in relation to the rays coming from things: it mixes its own nature with the nature of the things, and corrupts and distorts it.

Idols of the cave are idols of the individual person. In addition to the mistakes of human nature in general, each of us has our own personal cave or burrow, as it were, which breaks up and distorts the light of nature. This can be because of each person’s own individual nature; or because of their upbringing and contacts with other people; or because of their reading of books, depending on which ones each individual admires and takes as an authority; or because of differences in their sense impressions, depending on things like whether the mind is preoccupied and prejudiced, or open and unbiased. So it is obvious that the human spirit is disposed differently in different people, and randomly varied and perturbed. Heraclitus was right to say that people search for scientific knowledge in their own little worlds, and not in the larger world they share. [r.16]

By its own nature, the human understanding readily assumes that there is greater order and similarity among things than it finds. Although many things in nature are unique and incommensurable with anything else in many respects, it attributes to them parallels, and correspondences, and relationships which are not there. This has given rise to the fiction that all celestial motions are perfectly circular, completely rejecting spiral and coiling motions [n.15] (except in name). It is also why the element of fire in its own sphere was introduced, in order to make up a foursome with the other three elements, which are capable of being sensed. [n.16] Even the so-called elements had imposed on them an arbitrary ratio of 1:10 between their densities [n.17] — and other such dreams. And this vacuousness does not apply only to dogmas, but also to simple notions. . . . .

Those who have written about the sciences are either empiricists or dogmatists. Empiricists are like ants, who only collect things and make use of them. Rationalists are like spiders, who weave webs out of their own bodies. But the bee has a middle policy: it extracts material from the flowers of the gardens and meadows, and digests and transforms it by its own powers. [n.18] The genuine task of philosophy is much the same: it does not depend only or mainly on the powers of the mind; nor does it deposit the raw materials supplied by natural history and mechanical observations in the memory just as they are, but as they have been worked over and transformed by the understanding. Therefore there is much to be hoped for from a closer marriage (which has not yet taken place) between these faculties, namely the experiential and the rational. . . . .

BOOK II

Aphorism 2.1

[227] The function and purpose of human power is to generate a new nature or natures, and to impose them on a given body. The function and purpose of human scientific knowledge is to discover the form of a given nature, or its genuine specific difference, or its ‘nature naturing’, [n.19] or the source of its influence (these are the only words we have to give a rough indication of what I am talking about). Each of these primary functions has a secondary function, which is subordinate to it, and of less significance. Secondary to the former is the transformation of one concrete body into another, within the limits of possibility. Secondary to the latter is the discovery of the latent process in every coming into being or change, which stretches from [228] the evident efficient and material cause to the form which is acquired; and similarly the discovery of the latent schematism of bodies which are at rest, and not undergoing change.

Aphorism 2.2

What a dreadful state human science is currently in, is obvious even from what is generally said about it. It is a correct assumption that genuine knowledge is knowledge through causes; and these are rightly divided into four kinds: material, formal, efficient, and final. Of these, final causes do more harm than good in the sciences, except where human actions are involved. People have given up hope of discovering formal causes. But efficient and material causes (such as are researched into and generally accepted — i.e. which are far removed from the latent processes which give rise to form) are shallow and superficial, and contribute almost nothing to genuine and productive science. However, I have not forgotten that above I noted and corrected the error of the human mind which consists in ascribing to forms the leading role in being. [n.20] In nature nothing genuinely exists apart from individual bodies, which perform pure individual actions in accordance with a law. But in science, this very law (and researching into it, discovering it, and expounding it) is the foundation of all knowledge and practical application. What I mean by ‘forms’ is this law and its clauses; and I use this name mainly because it is familiar and in frequent use.

Aphorism 2.3

If you know the cause of some nature (e.g. whiteness or heat) only as it occurs in specific subjects, your scientific knowledge is incomplete; and if you know the effects it can produce only on some of the materials capable of them, your power is equally incomplete. And if you know only the efficient and material cause, you will be able to arrive at new discoveries [229] in material which is broadly similar and prepared the same way, but you will not move the deeply fixed limits of things. This is because causes are variable, and are nothing other than carriers and causes giving rise to the form in particular cases. But if you know forms, you will grasp the unity of nature in different materials. Therefore you will be able to discover and make things which have never been made before, the like of which have never been actualised by the varied states of nature, nor by deliberate experiment, nor by chance itself; nor would they even have been thought of by the human mind. So the discovery of forms leads to true thinking and creative freedom.

Aphorism 2.4

Although the roads to power and to human science are parallel and almost the same, yet because of the pernicious and deeply-rooted habit of dealing in abstractions, it is far safer to begin the reawakening of the sciences from the foundations which, in proper order, belong to the practical part, so that the latter will stamp itself on and determine the contemplative part. So we must see what rule, or instruction, or guidance you would need if you wanted to generate or impose some particular nature on a given body. I shall do this in simple and direct language.

For example, suppose you have some silver, and you want to impose on it the yellow colour of gold and an increase in weight (consistent with the laws of matter); or you want to make an opaque stone transparent; or make glass strong; or turn something which is not a vegetable into a vegetable — I am saying that we need to see what sort of rule or guidance you would most like to have. First, you would undoubtedly want to be offered something which would achieve a result, and be in accordance with experience. Second, you would want to be prescribed something which would not force you into a limited range of specific means and methods, in case you might perhaps lack those means, and have no convenient way of obtaining the equipment. But if there are other means or methods (beyond what is prescribed) for generating such a nature, they might perhaps be among those available to you for your work. These resources would be wasted if they were left out of account by the narrowness of the rule. Third, you would want to be offered something which was not as problematic as the operation itself which you wish to perform, but closer to what is practicable.

So I declare that a true and complete rule of practice must be definite, open, and orderly, or specifying the sequence [230] necessary to achieve the result. And this is the very same as the discovery of a genuine form, since the form of some particular nature is such that, assuming the form, the given nature infallibly follows. Therefore the form is permanently present as long as the nature is present; since it always supports it, and inheres in the whole of it. The same form is such that, if it is taken away, the given nature infallibly disappears; and as long as the nature is absent, the form is absent, since it is not there to support it, and it does not inhere in anything else. Finally, a genuine form is such that it draws the given nature from some source of being; and this nature is common to many things, and more ‘naturally known’ (as they say) than the form itself. So I shall formulate and commend the following as the true and complete axiom of knowing: to discover another nature, which is convertible with a given nature, and yet is a particular instance of a nature which is better known, and like a true genus. The two rules I mentioned at the beginning (the practical and the contemplative) are the same thing: what is most useful in practice is most true in scientific knowledge.

Aphorism 2.5

The rule or axiom for the transformation of bodies is of two kinds. First the body is considered as a collection or bundle of simple natures. In gold, for example, there is a conjunction of the following: that it is yellow; that it is heavy, and has a particular weight; that it is malleable or ductile, and can be stretched out to a particular extent; that it is non-volatile, and loses none of its substance when heated; that it has a particular degree of fluidity; that it is separated and dissolved by such-and-such means; and so on with the other natures which come together in gold. So this sort of axiom enables you to derive the thing itself from the forms of its simple natures. [231] If you know the forms, and the way to superimpose yellowness, weight, ductility, fixity, fluidity, dissolution, and so on, together with their degrees and modes, you will see that they can be brought together in any given body (and you will make it your business to do so), from which follows its transformation into gold. This kind of operation relates to primary action, since the same method of bringing a nature into being applies equally to a single simple one, and to many. The only difference is that, if you are trying to generate many natures, you are more restricted and limited in what you can do, because it is difficult to bring so many together into a single whole. The only way they come together easily is through the ordinary and well-trodden paths of nature. However, it should be said that this method of working (which considers simple natures, even though they are in a compound body), starts out from what is constant, eternal, and universal in nature, and opens up wide roads for human power, such as human thought can barely grasp or imagine, the way things stand at the moment.

The second kind of axiom, which depends on the discovery of a ‘latent process’, does not start out from simple natures, but from compound bodies, as they are found in the ordinary course of nature. For example, the topic of research might be about the initial conditions, the way, and the stages by which gold (or any other metal or stone) is formed out of its original menstruums or crude state into the complete metal; or similarly, in the case of plants, about the process by which they grow from original combinations of juices in the earth, or from seeds, into a fully-formed plant, through the regular succession of changes, and the continually varied forces of nature; or again, about the generation of animals, explained in order from the beginning to birth — and similarly with other bodies.

But this inquiry is aimed not only at how bodies come into being, but also at the other changes and products of nature. For example, when the topic of research is about the whole continuous sequence of actions which constitute nutrition, from the original ingestion of food to its complete absorption; or about voluntary motion in animals, from the original sense impression, through the continued activity of the spirits, up to the bending and moving of the limbs; or about explaining the motion of the tongue and lips and other organs, up to the uttering of articulate words. These too are directed towards compound natures, i.e. natures which are systematically interconnected. [232] They are considered as particular and specific practices of nature, and not as fundamental or universal laws which constitute forms. However, it must generally be admitted that this method seems quicker, closer to hand, and more likely to yield results, than the more fundamental one.

Similarly, the practical part corresponding to this speculative part, extends and advances its activity, from things which are normally found in nature to things next to them, or not too far removed from the things next to them; but deeper and more radical operations on nature depend entirely on primary axioms. Furthermore, where humans have no ability to do anything, but only to know, as in astronomy (since humans have not been given the power to act on, or change, or transform the heavenly bodies), any research into matters of fact or truth, as well as knowledge of causes and sympathies, relates to the primary and universal axioms about simple natures — for example, the nature of spontaneous rotation, attraction or magnetic power, and many other things which are common to everything, and not exclusive to the heavenly bodies. Thus no-one would hope to solve the question of whether it is really the earth or the sky which rotates daily, without first understanding the nature of spontaneous rotation.

Aphorism 2.6

The ‘latent process’, which I shall now discuss, is the kind of thing which people are most unlikely to think of, given what their minds are filled with nowadays. I do not mean by it the various measures, or indications, or stages of development which are visible in bodies, but a completely continuous process which largely escapes the senses.

For example, in every coming into being or transformation of bodies, we need to find out what is lost or evaporates, and what remains or is added; what expands, and what contracts; what is united, and what is separated; what is extended, and what is cut off; what pushes, and what resists; what predominates, and what gives way; and many other such things.

Here again, the inquiry does not stop at the coming into being or transformation of bodies; but in all other alterations and changes, we similarly need to ask what happens first, and what happens later; what is quicker, and what is slower; what sets off motion, and what regulates it; and the such like. But all these things are completely beyond the knowledge and scope of today’s sciences, which have been put together by people with extremely lazy minds, and absolutely no practical skills. Since every natural action is carried out by smallest parts (or at least by parts which are too small [233] to affect the senses), no-one can hope to control or alter nature, without understanding and being aware of them in the required way.

Aphorism 2.7

Similarly, research into and discovery of ‘latent schematisms’ in bodies is something new, no less than the discovery of latent processes and forms. It is clear that, up till now, we have been spending our time in the entrance lobbies of nature, and have not penetrated its inner sanctums. But you cannot endow a given body with a new nature, or transmute it successfully and appropriately into a new body, without having a good awareness of how to alter and transform the body — otherwise you will embark on procedures which are ineffectual (or at least difficult and awkward), because they are unsuitable for the nature of the body being worked on. Therefore it is clear that this road also needs to be opened up, and given a proper surface.

In the case of organic bodies (such as those of humans and animals), it is clear that a lot of good and useful work has been put into their anatomy. The discipline appears to be a subtle one, and a good example of the close scrutiny of nature. But this kind of anatomy is carried out at the level of what is visible and subject to the senses; and it applies only to organic bodies. Moreover, it is something obvious and open to view, by contrast with the genuine anatomy of the latent schematisms of bodies which are thought to be homogeneous — especially things which have the same specific character throughout their parts, such as iron and stone, or the homogeneous parts of plants and animals, such as root, leaf, flower, flesh, blood, bone, etc. And even in this kind of anatomy, there has not been a complete absence of human effort, since it is implied by the separation of apparently homogeneous bodies by distillation and other methods of dissolving them, so that the heterogeneity of the compound becomes evident from the conglomeration [234] of the homogeneous parts. This is useful, and it contributes to our enquiry — even though the outcome is often deceptive, since many natures are attributed to the process of separation, as if they already existed in the compound; whereas in fact fire and heat, and other solvents, endow them with a new, additional nature. In any case, even this is only a small part of the work required to discover the genuine schematisms in compounds; and they are something far subtler and more detailed, and are confused rather than revealed and illuminated by the action of fire.

Therefore the separation and analysis of bodies should be carried out, not by fire, but by reason and true induction, with the help of observations; and by making comparisons with other bodies, and reducing the ingredients which are blended together in the compound to simple natures and their forms; and obviously by changing sides from Vulcan to Minerva, [n.21] if there is any intention of bringing to light the genuine structures and schematisms of bodies. It is on these that depend all the occult (and, as they say, ‘specific’) properties and virtues of things, from which we can also derive the rules for all their effective alterations and transformations.

For example, we should try to find out how much spirit there is in every body, and how much tangible being. As for spirit, we should find out whether it is abundant and swollen, or little and feeble; more rarefied, or more dense; more airy, or more fiery; active or slack; weak or strong; going forwards or backwards; discrete or continuous; in harmony with its external environment, or unharmonious. And similarly the same line of inquiry covers tangible being (which is subject to no fewer variations than spirit), with its pile, fibre, and overall texture; and also the location of spirit within the corporeal mass, with its pores, passages, veins, and cells, and the rudimentary and tentative first stages of an organic body. But here too, and hence in every discovery of latent schematisms, it is certainly the true and clear light emitted by the primary axioms which disperses all darkness and obfuscation.

Aphorism 2.8

This will prevent us from reducing everything to atoms, which presuppose that there is a vacuum, and that matter is not subject to change — both of which suppositions are false. Instead, it will lead us to genuine particles, such as they are discovered to be. Again, there is nothing to put anyone off by its obscurity or inexplicability. Instead, the closer the investigation comes to simple natures, the [235] more everything will be straightforward and obvious, since we will be dealing with the simple instead of the complex; the commensurable instead of the incommensurable; the quantifiable instead of the unquantifiable; and with the definite and precise, instead of the indefinite and vague. It is the same as with the individual letters in a piece of writing, or the individual notes in choral music. But research into nature goes best when physics ends up in mathematics. Again, no-one should be put off by large numbers or small fractions. In matters which are handled mathematically, it is as easy to suppose or conceive the number a thousand as the number one, or the thousandth part as the unity of which it is the part.

Aphorism 2.9

The two kinds of axiom which I have discussed above are the basis of the true division of philosophy and the sciences, provided that the words are taken in my sense, rather than in their traditional meanings, which give only an approximate indication of the truth. That is to say, metaphysics consists in the study of forms, which are eternal and unchanging (at least as far as reason and their own law is concerned). [n.22] Physics consists in the study of efficient causes, material causes, latent processes, and latent schematisms (all of which are concerned with the ordinary and regular course of nature, and not with fundamental and eternal laws). Similarly, subordinate to each of these there is a practical science: subordinate to physics is mechanics; and subordinate to metaphysics is magic (taken in its reformed sense), on account of its greater empire over nature connected by wide roads.

Aphorism 2.10

Having set up the target which learning is aiming for, we must proceed to its principles, and in the least perverse or confused order. The secret of interpreting nature has two broad divisions. The first is concerned with extracting or eliciting axioms from experience; and the second with deducing or deriving new experiences from axioms. The first is divided three ways into three tasks: the task of the senses, the task of the memory, and the task of the mind or reason.

[236] The first is to prepare a Natural and Experiential History, which must be sufficient and good. It is fundamental to the whole project, which is to discover what nature does or has done to it, and not what we might invent or think up.

Natural and experiential history is so varied and random, that it makes the human understanding put together what it should separate, or separate what it should put together, unless it is structured and laid out in the appropriate order. Therefore the next task is to put together Tables and Matrices of Particular Instances, presented in such a way that the human understanding can make use of them.

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