ms_.

"On a given body to generate or superinduce a new nature or natures, is
the work and aim of human power.... Of a given nature to discover the
form or true specific difference, or nature-engendering nature (_natura
naturans_) or source of emanation (for these are the terms which are
nearest to a description of the thing), is the work and aim of human
knowledge."[62]

The questions, then, whose answers give the key to the whole Baconian
philosophy, may be put briefly thus--What are [v.03 p.0147] forms? and how
is it that knowledge of them solves both the theoretical and the practical
problem of science? Bacon himself, as may be seen from the passage quoted
above, finds great difficulty in giving an adequate and exact definition of
what he means by a form. As a general description, the following passage
from the _Novum Organum_, ii. 4, may be cited:--

"The form of a nature is such that given the form the nature infallibly
follows.... Again, the form is such that if it be taken away the nature
infallibly vanishes.... Lastly, the true form is such that it deduces
the given nature from some source of being which is inherent in more
natures, and which is better known in the natural order of things than
the form itself."[63]

From this it would appear that, since by a _nature_ is meant some sensible
quality, superinduced upon, or possessed by, a body, so by a form we are to
understand the cause of that nature, which cause is itself a determinate
case or manifestation of some general or abstract quality inherent in a
greater number of objects. But all these are mostly marks by which a form
may be recognized, and do not explain what the form really is. A further
definition is accordingly attempted in Aph. 13:--

"The form of a thing is the very thing itself, and the thing differs
from the form no otherwise than as the apparent differs from the real,
or the external from the internal, or the thing in reference to the man
from the thing in reference to the universe."

This throws a new light on the question, and from it the inference at once
follows, that the forms are the permanent causes or substances underlying
all visible phenomena, which are merely manifestations of their activity.
Are the forms, then, forces? At times it seems as if Bacon had approximated
to this view of the nature of things, for in several passages he identifies
forms with laws of ac