27: Magical Instances

27. Magical Instances

⁵¹ In this, the matter or efficient agent is scanty or small compared with the grandeur of the effect produced.

So that even when common, they appear miraculous.

Nature, however, supplies these but sparingly.

What she will do when her whole store is thrown open, and after the discovery of forms, processes, and conformation, will appear hereafter.

These magic effects are produced in 3 ways:

1. Self-multiplication

Examples are fire and the specific poisons

2. The motions transferred and multiplied from wheel to wheel or by the excitement or invitation of another substance

Example are in the magnet, which excites innumerable needles without losing or diminishing its power

3. The excess of rapidity of one species of motion over another.

This has been observed in the case of gunpowder, cannon, and mines.

The two former require an investigation of harmonies, the latter of a measure of motion.

The transformations of bodies requires minima that create the delicate conformations of matter, as to create effects.

We still do not know whether there be any mode of changing bodies per minima.

⁵² We treat of logic, and not of philosophy.

Our logic instructs and informs the understanding so that with the small hooks of the mind, it can catch and grasp, not mere abstractions, but rather:

• penetrate nature.
• discover the properties and effects of bodies, and the determinate laws of[288] their substance (so that this science of ours springs from the nature of things, as well as from that of the mind)

There are 27 prerogative instances:

1. Solitary
2. Migrating
3. Conspicuous
4. Clandestine
5. Constitutive
6. Similar
7. Singular
8. Deviating
9. Bordering
10. Power
11. Accompanying and hostile
12. Subjunctive
13. Alliance
14. Instances of the cross
15. Divorce
16. Instances of the gate
17. Citing
18. Instances of the road
19. Supplementary
20. Lancing
21. Instances of the rod
22. Instances of the course
23. Doses of nature
24. Wrestling
25. Suggesting
26. Generally useful
27. Magical instances

The advantage, by which these instances excel the more ordinary, regards specifically either theory or practice, or both.

Theory assists either:

• the senses, as in the five instances of the lamp
• the understanding:
  • by expediting the exclusive mode of arriving at the form, as in solitary instances, or
  • by confining, and more immediately indicating the affirmative, as in the migrating, conspicuous, accompanying, and subjunctive instances; or
  • by elevating the understanding, and leading it to general and common natures, and that either immediately, as in the clandestine and singular instances, and those of alliance; or
  • very nearly so, as in the constitutive; or still less so, as in the similar instances; or
  • by correcting the understanding of its habits, as in the deviating instances; or by leading to the grand form or fabric of the universe, as in the bordering[289] instances; or
  • by guarding it from false forms and causes, as in those of the cross and of divorce.

With regard to practice, they either:

• point it out, or
• measure
• elevate it

They point it out either:

• by showing where we must start to not repeat the labors of others, as in the instances of power
• by inducing us to aspire to that which may be possible, as in the suggesting instances

The four mathematical instances measure it. The generally useful and the magical elevate it.

Out of these 27 instances, some must be collected immediately, without waiting for a particular investigation of properties.

Such are the:

• similar
• singular
• deviating
• bordering instances
• power
• of the gate
• suggesting
• generally useful
• magical instances

These either assist and cure the understanding and senses, or furnish our general practice.

The remainder are to be collected when we finish our synoptical tables for the work of the interpreter, upon any particular nature.

These instances, honored and gifted with such prerogatives, are like the soul amid the vulgar crowd of instances, and (as we from the first observed) a few of them are worth a multitude of the others.

When, therefore, we are forming our tables they must be searched out with the greatest zeal, and placed in the table.

Since mention must be made of them in what follows, a treatise upon their nature has necessarily been prefixed.

We must next proceed to the supports and corrections of induction. From there, we go to concretes, the latent process, and latent conformations, and the other matters, which we have enumerated in the 21st aphorism.

In this way, we may yield up their fortune to mankind upon the emancipation and majority of their understanding.

Creation did not become entirely and utterly rebellious by the curse, but in consequence of the Divine decree, “in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread”.

She is compelled by our labors (not assuredly by our disputes or magical ceremonies) to supply man’s daily wants.

END OF “NOVUM ORGANUM”