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lxxiv INTRODUCTION.

ture of the lens, enables rays from near objects to be accurately focussed, were unknown to him. But this is only to say that he had not anticipated the physiological knowledge of the nineteenth century. It must always be borne in mind that, in Bacon's view, the radiation of light through space did not stand alone. It was a type of other radiant activities, such as colour (then supposed to be distinct from, though dependent on, light), licat, sound, and odour. (With regard to sound, however, certain rescrves were made.) It is interesting to note Bacon's handling of an important problem, not to be solved but by a more potent calculus than any in his possession, how these various actions, crossing one another's paths in their passage through space, retained their distinctness'.

IX. BACON'S ALCHEMY,

It will be remembered that among the various branches of knowledge regarded by Bacon as falling under the head of Physics, was Barology (Scientia ponderum). The treatise of Jordanus Nemorarius, De Ponderibus, to which reference is made, vol. i. p. 169, had perhaps suggested the treatment of the phenomena of gravity as a distinct branch of science. No treatise by Bacon upon this subject, so far as I am aware, is extant and the few remarks in the fourth section of the Cpus Majus (pp. 167-174) contain all that we know of his speculations on the theory of gravitation. ' Nor is anything known to us of the way in which Bacon treated, if indeed he ever attempted, the science which he called Agricultura,' which, as we have seen, was intended to include the study of living bodics, vegetable and animal. But the case is otherwise with the science regarded by him as preparatory to the study of life, 'Alkimia Speculativa.' On the subject of Alchemy, very little is said in the Opus Majus; and the omission was supplied in the provisional way, which alone was possible under the hurry of compilation to satisfy Pope Clement's orders, by the Opus Minus, the first of the

See note on vol. ii. p. 46.

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