From Natural History to Natural Magic: Francis Bacons Sylva sylvarum

Proefschrift

ter verkrijging van der graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen

op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. mr. S.C.J.J. Kortmann volgens besluit van het college van decanen

in het openbaar te verdedingen op maandag 16 december 2013 om 14:30 uur precies

door

Doina-Cristina Rusu geboren op 12 maart 1985 te Boekarest (Roemeni)

Promotores

Prof. dr. Christoph Lthy Prof. dr. Ilie Prvu (University of Bucharest)

Copromotor Dr. Dana Jalobeanu (University of Bucharest)

Manuscriptcommissie

Prof. dr. J.M.M.H. Thijssen Prof. dr. Dan Garber (Princeton University) Dr. Kathryn Murphy (Oxford University)

Cover designed by Lucia Dumitrescu and Doina-Cristina Rusu (original image Francis Bacon, Instauratio magna, London, 1620)

From Natural History to Natural Magic: Francis Bacons Sylva sylvarum

Doctoral Thesis

To obtain the degree of doctor from Radboud University Nijmegen

on the authority of the Rector Magnificus, Professor dr. S.C.J.J. Kortmann and from the University of Bucharest

on the authority of Rector Magnificus, Professor Mircea Dumitru

to be defended in public on Monday 16 December 2013 at 14:30 hours

by

Doina-Cristina Rusu Born on 12 March 1985 in Bucharest (Romania)

Supervisors Prof. Dr. Christoph Lthy Prof. Dr. Ilie Prvu (University of Bucharest)

Co-Supervisor Dr. Dana Jalobeanu (University of Bucharest)

Doctoral Thesis Committee Prof. dr. J.M.M.H. Thijssen Prof. dr. Dan Garber (Princeton University) Dr. Kathryn Murphy (Oxford University)

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Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................... 5 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 7

Chapter 1. Bacon, Natural Philosophy and Magic: A Survey of the Status Quaestionis .......................................................................................................... 17

1. 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 17

1. 2. The beginning of the contemporary debate: Thorndike and Rossi ............................................ 18

1. 3. The issues at stake ..................................................................................................................... 20

1. 4. Bacons project, the Instauratio magna .................................................................................... 22 1. 4. 1. Operative philosophy: the influence of alchemy and magic.............................................. 23

1. 4. 2. The history of arts and the role of the efficient cause ........................................................ 27

1. 5. Bacons reform of natural history .............................................................................................. 31

1. 6. The role of experiment .............................................................................................................. 34

1. 6. 1. Bacons experiments: the torture of nature or legal interrogation? ............................ 35

1. 6. 2. Experience versus experiment .................................................................................... 37

1. 6. 3. Experientia literata ............................................................................................................ 39

1. 6. 4. Functions of Bacons experiments .................................................................................... 43

1. 6. 5. The relationship between experiment and theory .............................................................. 44

1. 7. Induction and forms ................................................................................................................... 46

1. 8. Bacons matter theory ................................................................................................................ 51

1. 8. 1. Tangible and pneumatic matter ......................................................................................... 52

1. 8. 2. Simple natures: schematisms and motions ........................................................................ 53

1. 8. 3. The appetites of matter ...................................................................................................... 55

1. 8. 4. The theory of matter in Bacons cosmology ...................................................................... 56

1. 9. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 57

Chapter 2: Sylva Sylvarum in the Context of Bacons Natural Philosophy . 59 2. 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 59

2. 2. Scholarly studies of Sylva sylvarum .......................................................................................... 61

2. 3. Experiment and experience in the theoretical works and the Latin natural histories ......... 63

2. 3. 1. A deplorable lack of theory concerning experimentation .................................................. 64

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2. 3. 2. The issue of terminology: theory, experience and experiment .......................................... 66

2. 3. 3. Experiments and the art of experimenting in Latin natural histories ............................. 68

2. 3. 3. 1. The Historia ventorum ............................................................................................... 69

2. 3. 3. 2. The Historia densi et rari ........................................................................................... 70

2. 3. 3. 3. The Historia vitae et mortis ....................................................................................... 72

2. 3. 4. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 73

2. 4. The standing of the Sylva sylvarum vis--vis the Latin natural histories .................................. 74

2. 4. 1. The mysteries of the book ................................................................................................. 74

2. 4. 2. Bacons own distinctions between types of experiments .................................................. 82

2. 4. 2. 1. Experiment solitary and experiments in consort .............................................. 82

2. 4. 2. 2. Experiments of light and experiments of fruit ................................................... 83 2. 4. 3. Different types of instances under the title experiment ................................................. 86

2. 4. 3. 1. Bacons own experiences and borrowings from sources .......................................... 86 2. 4. 3. 2. Theoretical and empirical instances .......................................................................... 88

2. 4. 3. 3. Vulgar experiences and experiments ......................................................................... 89

2. 4. 3. 4. Operative instances: medical receipts, spiritual magic and divination .................... 90

2. 4. 3. 5. Conclusion: Sylvas variety of instances ................................................................... 93 2. 4. 4. The pedagogical function of experiments.......................................................................... 93

2. 5. Conclusion: Sylva sylvarum in the context of natural and experimental history ....................... 96

Chapter 3: Types of Experiments of Light in Sylva sylvarum ................... 99 3. 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 99

3. 2. Scholarly views on the function of Bacons experiments in Sylva sylvarum .......................... 101

3. 3. Experiments directed towards the production of knowledge .................................................. 103

3. 3. 1. The first function of experiments: illustrations of matter theory ..................................... 104

3. 3. 2. Second function of experiment: rejection of experiments proposed by ancients and moderns ....................................................................................................................................... 108

3. 3. 3. Experiments used to refute theories or opinions formulated by Bacons predecessors ... 114

3. 3. 4. Experiments exploring the properties of bodies during the development of a process ... 120

3. 3. 5. Experiments directed towards establishing correlations between those properties of the bodies that cannot be observed by the senses .............................................................................. 126

3. 3. 6. Experiments as models of natural processes ................................................................... 130

3. 4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 137

Chapter 4. A Case Study on Bacons Use of Sources: Experiments with Plants in Sylva sylvarum and the Magia naturalis ........................................ 139

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4. 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 139

4. 2. Previous Scholarly Views ........................................................................................................ 141

4. 3. Plants in Della Porta and Bacon: the case of grafting ............................................................. 143

4.4. Bacons creative use of sources for his Sylva sylvarum ........................................................... 153

4. 4. 1. Methodological criticism ................................................................................................. 156

4. 4. 2. Generalizations ................................................................................................................ 159

4. 4. 3. Addition of causal explanations ...................................................................................... 166

4.5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 174

Chapter 5: Sylva sylvarum and the Baconian Science of Magic .................. 178 5. 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 178

5. 2. State of the scholarly debate .................................................................................................... 180

5. 3. Problems of boundaries: Bacons science of magic ................................................................ 183

5. 3. 1. The classification of sciences .......................................................................................... 183

5. 3. 2. Different types of magic .................................................................................................. 185

5. 3. 3. Physics and metaphysics: the discovery of causes .......................................................... 187

5. 3. 4. Physics and metaphysics: discovery of latent schematisms, latent processes, and forms 190

5. 3. 5. Bacons definition of form .............................................................................................. 192

5. 3. 6. Appetites, motions and forms .......................................................................................... 197

5. 3. 7. How a magician should manipulate nature ...................................................................... 202

5. 3. 8. Conclusion: Is Sylva about natural magic? ...................................................................... 204

5. 4. Bacons transformation of the Science of Magic .................................................................... 207

5. 4. 1. The science of magic in Della Portas Magia naturalis .................................................. 209

5. 4. 2. Different interests in the study of plants: Magia naturalis and Sylva sylvarum .............. 212

5. 4. 3. From mechanics to magic ................................................................................................ 214

5. 4. 3. 1. Relations between simple natures ............................................................................ 214

5. 4. 3. 2. Germination and vivification ................................................................................... 217 5. 4. 3. 3. Degeneration and transmutation ............................................................................. 222

5. 4. 3. 4. New species of things ............................................................................................... 227 5. 4. 4. How mechanics becomes natural magic .......................................................................... 231

5. 5. Conclusion: Bacons science of magic .................................................................................... 232

Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 235 Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 242

Appendix 1: Bacons classification of sciences according to De augmentis scientiarum ........................................................................................................ 264

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Appendix 2: Simple schematisms of matter according to the Abecedarium novum naturae .................................................................................................. 269 Appendix 3: Simple motions and their corresponding appetites according to the Abecedarium novum naturae .................................................................... 270 Appendix 4: Sums of motions and measurements of motion according to the Abecedarium novum naturae ........................................................................... 271 Appendix 5: Tables for the experiments exploring the properties of a body

during the development of a process (section. 3. 3. 4.) ................................. 272 Appendix 6: Table of borrowings from Giambattista Della Portas Magia Naturalis and Hugh Platts Floraes paradise in Sylva sylavrum, centuries V

and VI ............................................................................................................... 275 Appendix 7: Scheme of Bacons borrowing from Della Portas Magia

naturalis in Sylva sylvarum, centuries V and VI ........................................... 277 Summary .......................................................................................................... 278 Samenvatting .................................................................................................... 285 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... 292 Curriculum vitae ............................................................................................. 294

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List of Abbreviations

SEH = The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England (14 vols.). Collected and edited by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath (London, 18571874; facsimile reprint Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 19611963). OFB = The Oxford Francis Bacon (15 vols. planned, 7 vols. to date). General editors: Graham Rees and Lisa Jardine (19962006); Sir Brian Vickers (Oxford, 2006).

AL = The Advancement of Learning (OFB IV) ANN = Abecedarium novum naturae (OFB XIII, 171225) CDNR = Cogitationes de natura rerum (SEH I, 11-38; V, 417-439) CDSH = Cogitationes de scientia humana (SEH III, 177-198) CF = Calor et frigus (SEH III, 641-52) CV = Cogitata et visa (SEH III, 591-620) DAS = De augmentis scientiarum (SEH I, 421837; IV, 272498, V, 3119) DFRM = De fluxu et refluxu maris (SEH I, 47-64; V, 441-458) DGI = Descriptio globi intellectualis (OFB VI, 96169) DINP = De interpretation naturae proemium (SEH III, 505-521) DO = Distributio operis (OFB XI: 2647) DPAO = De principiis atque originibus (OFV VI, 197-267) DSV = De sapientia veterum (SEH VI, 605-86; 687-764) DVM = De vijs mortis (OFB IV, 270-359) Ess = The essayes or counsels, civill and morall (OFB XV) FL = Filum labyrinthi (SEH III, 493-504) HDR = Historia densi et rari (OFB XIII, 1169) HGL = Historia grauis & leuis (OFB XII, 133-35) HIAI = Historia & inquisitio de animato & inanimate (OFB XIII, 227-335) HNE = Historia naturalis et experimentalis (OFB XII, 7-17) HSMS = Historia sulphuris, mercurij et salis (OFB XII, 137-39) HSAR = Historia sympatiae et antipatiae rerum (OFB XIII, 135)

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HV = Historia ventorum (OFB XII, 19-131) HVM = Historia vitae et mortis (OFB XII, 140377) IDM = Inquisitio de magnete (OFB XIII, 237-41) ILM = Inquisitio legitima de motu (SEH III, 621-40) IM = Instauratio magna (OFB XI, 2-25) MN = Magnalia naturae (SEH III, 167-68) NA = The New Atlantis (SEH III, 119-66) NO = Novum organum (OFB XI, 48-447) PAH = Parasceve ad historiam naturalem (OFB XI, 448-73) PhU = Phenomena universi (OFB VI, 2-61) PMR = Physiological and medical remains (SEH III, 795-836) PID = Partis instaurationis secundce delineatio & argumentum (SEH III, 541-56) RP = Redargutio philosophiarum (SEH III, 557-86) SS = Sylva sylvarum (SEH II, 331-680) TC = Thema coeli (OFB VI, 171-93) TDL = Topica inquisitionis de luce et lumine (OFB XIII, 243-57) TPM = Temporis partus masculus (SEH III, 527-39) VT = Valerius terminus (SEH III, 215-52)

Other Abbreviations: FP = Floraes paradise, Hugh Platt (London, 1608) MN = Magia naturalis, Giambattista Della Porta (London, 1558 for the English translation, Neaple 1589 for the Latin version)

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Introduction

Francis Bacons project was the reformation of natural philosophy, and its overall aim was to render all kinds of discoveries possible and to improve human life. This reformation in turn relied on the radical transformation of five disciplines, to wit: natural history, physics, mechanics, metaphysics, and magic. In their reformed state, these disciplines are allocated the following tasks: natural history is supposed to gather information about the world, in the form of observations and experiments; the other four disciplines deal with the hidden structures (the so-called schematisms) and hidden motions responsible for visible changes. Bacon names both these structures and motions simple natures. However, the four disciplines deal with these simple natures from different perspectives. Physics and mechanics study them from the point of view of the material and efficient causes: while physics investigates the causes of the simple natures in the individual bodies in which they appear, mechanics applies this knowledge, inducing these natures upon bodies. Metaphysics and magic, in turn, represent the superior pair of sciences. They deal with the same entities treated also by physics and mechanics, but they investigate their formal causes. Metaphysics seeks what is common to all those bodies in which one of the simple natures is present. Magic, finally, applies this knowledge in order to transform bodies. Of all these five disciplines, Bacon composed and published natural histories. Physics and mechanics were treated in the Latin natural histories, which are (as we shall see) much more than what natural histories are traditionally expected to provide, because they include theoretical considerations and propose veritable transformations of nature. Metaphysics is treated by Bacon in the second book of the Novum organum, where he investigates the simple nature of heat. But what about magic? Does it represent the only science that was not developed by Bacon? This dissertation claims that Bacon constructed and presented his science of magic in Sylva sylvarum, a work published posthumously by his erstwhile assistant, William Rawley. In fact, as we shall document, what Bacon performs in several experiments from Sylva is natural magic in the sense defined in his earlier works. Sylva sylvarum has never been read in connection with Bacons science of magic. The main reason for this is that according to its title, it is a natural history, a discipline viewed as

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inferior compared with the other four disciplines. Moreover, it has even been considered to be an inferior type of natural history, because this book looks very different from Bacons other natural histories as far as its language (English, not Latin), its structure, and its subjects of inquiry are concerned. In addition, many of its 1,000 so-called experiments have been identified as borrowings from other sources. For this reason, Sylva has been viewed as an imperfect kind of natural history, or else as a commonplace book or a notebook, out of which information could be taken for use in the construction of a real natural history. Finally, as Sylva is a posthumous publication, it has been surrounded by suspicions that its contents do not correspond to Bacons intentions, and that it was possibly not even meant to be published. This dissertation proposes a new reading of Sylva sylvarum. It places this book in the context of Bacons theory of experimentation and his matter theory, and moreover examines Bacons use of sources, drawing conclusions about his understanding of natural histories, experimentation and magic. As our close reading will demonstrate, the experiments reported in Sylva have a range of different functions and lead to different types of results. And as these experiments are employed at different stages in the process of inquiry, they can be shown to belong to the respective domains of natural history, physics, mechanics, metaphysics and natural magic. As for magic, it has been already mentioned that Bacon understands by it the application of new forms to a given body and this is precisely what we see happen oftentimes in Sylva. The way in which Bacon built his natural magic is better seen in the transformation of the borrowed instances from the book representing the main source of Sylva: Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Della Portas Magia naturalis. A detailed comparison between the Magia and Sylva will show the creative and original way in which Bacon used this particular source for his historical and philosophical writings. There are two comparisons to be done here: one between singular instances and the other between the central concepts of their theories behind the manipulation of nature. I will be able to document that Bacon took Della Portas work, despite its title, to belong to physics and mechanics (according to Bacons own definition of these disciplines, namely dealing with individuals), and that Sylva represents the attempt to lift them up to the superior level of metaphysics and magic (once again according to his own view of these disciplines, the study of the hidden properties of matter). Della Portas experiments enter the domain of natural magic proper, once they clearly speak of operations on the hidden forms and natures of bodies. And this is how they are transformed in Sylva, by generalizing upon Della Portas operation of individuals and by adding causal

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explanations, both the generalizations and the explanations being cast in terms of Bacons matter theory.

In this thesis, I shall not offer a complete comparative analysis of the two books, but focus on the experiments of the two investigators involving plants. The reason for this choice

is that plants occupy for Bacon a special place, because he expects the knowledge obtained in their study to be applicable in the animal realm, and most importantly to the human body. As mentioned, the aim of improving the human lot is a characteristic of Bacons science in general, and, where salutary effects are brought about by changing the latent forms, it is a feature of Bacons natural magic.

Besides making these contributions to the central concepts of Bacons natural philosophy such as form, latent process, schematism, simple motion, etc., this thesis also

aims to improve our historiographical understanding of Bacons Sylva. Most importantly, we shall present a hitherto unknown source of Sylva, namely Hugh Platts Floraes paradise. It will be shown that Bacon read Platts horticultural treatise (which in turn repeatedly responds to Della Portas Magia naturalis) alongside Della Portas book, using the former as a corrective of the latter. Bacons own experimental reports in Sylva may thus no longer be viewed as unidirectional borrowings from Della Porta, but as the result of a complicated triangulation between the Neapolitans book, Platts critique thereof, and Bacons own experimentalism and theory. It is well known that Bacons project for the reformation of natural philosophy has remained incomplete. Magic, which according to the view defended in this dissertation represents the upper end and ultimate stage of natural philosophy, has hitherto been considered to have been absent from Bacons work, given that metaphysics, its theoretical twin, has been illustrated only in one case in the Novum organum. For this reason, the theme of Bacons use of magic has been barely discussed in the Bacon scholarship, or else negatively, through the claim that Bacon denotes the end of Renaissance magic and the beginning of modern science. Indeed, as we shall see in chapter 1, previous discussions of Bacons views on natural magic have mostly underlined Bacons criticism of contemporary magic.

It is indeed true that in his theoretical and methodological writings, Bacon is at pains to explain the way in which his own science differs from that of others. However, there, he also explains how magic, in its original and noble sense, can be reinstituted (see chapters 1 and 5). But when engaging with Bacons own understanding of magic, scholars have mostly limited themselves to repeating Bacons own definition of magic as the application of the

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forms discovered in metaphysics. Against this background, Sophie Weeks research constitutes an important step forward. She has, for the first time, connected Bacons reform of natural magic with his theory of matter. Our thesis will extend Weeks work considerably, by showing that Bacons conception of magic as the application of forms is not only reflected in, but constitutes the core of, the experimental collections of Sylva sylvarum. An investigation of the experimental and argumentative procedures of Sylva will also tell us something very important about the disciplinary entanglement in Baconian experimentalism. Many scholars have explicitly or implicitly assumed that the five disciplines composing Bacons reformed natural philosophy were practised separately and treated in different treatises. Recent scholarship has shown, however, that the natural histories written and published by Bacon during his lifetime present us with a mixture of physics and mechanics. As we shall hear in chapter 1, Peter Urbach and Guido Giglioni have argued that this mixture is not a sign of confusion, but that Bacon never proposed a water-tight separation between natural history and induction, the latter being Bacons method used in physics and metaphysics for the discovery of forms. But even in those few cases in which induction and natural histories were seen as a related enterprise, natural magic was left out. The reason for this omission seems to reside in another misunderstanding on the part of Bacon scholars, namely in the assumption that if magic is indeed the manipulation of those forms that metaphysics has discovered, then Bacon could not have performed any experiments in natural magic, given that he failed to complete his investigation of forms. I take this interpretation to be wrong. Bacons belief was, as I will argue in this dissertation, that in order to establish whether a given definition of forms was correct, one first had to test it in practice. Evidently, such a verification of provisional definitions of form, if successful, produces the very works that are the preserve of natural magic.

Note, however, that it is not my intention to claim that each instance reported in Sylva belongs to the domain of natural magic. This book contains 1,000 experiments, of which many are recordings of mere observations or very simple experiments, which can be considered to be at the level of natural history. Others seem to be at the level of physics and mechanics. The claim is rather that of the various types of instance presented in it, some and in fact the most important ones do belong to natural magic. If my interpretation is correct, and if we therefore accept that Sylva sylvarum is at least in part a book on natural magic, then we must also accept that that it represents, by way of models, the last step and potential fulfilment of Bacons general project. Should this be

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correct, then this book, which the secondary literature has generally ignored, becomes all of a sudden one of the key texts for the understanding of Bacons natural philosophy. The claim that Sylva marks the potential fulfilment of the Baconian project should not be understood as saying that with it, Bacons science has arrived at its endpoint and completion. In fact, it is not evident whether such a completion would even have been possible according to Bacons own conception. Cannot science, for Bacon, always be improved and new inventions be made? The precise way in which I deem Sylva to mark the potential fulfilment of Bacons project is this: in it, he described and performed all the sciences that deal with natural knowledge, that is to say, natural histories, physics, mechanics, metaphysics and magic. To be sure, all these sciences appear in Sylva in a scattered form, and Bacon would readily have admitted that it would have taken the effort of the entire scientific community to complete and apply these scattered observations, following his examples. What is the purpose of Sylva, then? According to my hypothesis, with what turned out to be his last work, Bacon gave his followers a model of how nature could be truly manipulated.

Some methodological points The works that provide the basis of our analysis are, apart from Sylva sylvarum, those that form part of Bacon's project of reformation, that is, of the Instauratio magna: the Novum organum,1 the De augmentis scientiarum,2 the Historia naturalis et experimentalis (with its three Latin natural histories),3 the Abecedarium novum nature4 and The New Atlantis.5

1 Novum organum or Directions concerning the Interpretation of Nature appeared in 1620. From the six books it

was supposed to contain, Bacon published only the first two. The book was supposed to deliver Bacons method of induction or the discovery of forms. The first book is concerned with purging and cleaning human mind from the errors and idols that affect the processes of knowledge. The second book starts with an exemplification of induction in the case of the form of heat and also gives indications on how to construct the natural and experimental histories, presenting a list of instances and the knowledge they can provide when used in the construction of a natural history. 2 De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum was published in 1623. It represents an extended version of the

Advancement of Learning (published in English in 1605, as a proposal for the reformation of knowledge dedicated to the new king, James I). However, while the latter had only two books, the extended version had nine, the first being a translation of the first book of the Advancement, and all the others an expansion of the second book The book deals with Bacons tree of knowledge (see appendix 1), offering classifications and definitions of all the sciences. 3 The Historia naturalis et experimentalis ad condendam philosophiam: sive, Phenomena universi, the third part

of the Instauratio magna, was supposed to contain six natural histories, as an exemplification of how the natural historical work should be done. From these six titles, Bacon published two during his lifetime (in 1622 and 1623, respectively), the Historia ventorum and the Historia vitae et mortis. The third, Historia densi et rari, was left in manuscript form and was published posthumously by Bacons secretary, William Rawley. However, an introduction of the book, containing rules for the construction of a natural history appeared in the first edition together with the Historia ventorum.

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Whenever I found it fruitful to do so, I have compared these texts with the early ones (namely the Valerius terminus,6 The Advancement of Learning,7 the Descriptio globi intellectualis,8 the De sapientia veterum9). These works are invoked to illustrate that Bacons overall conception of the structure and tasks of the scientific disciplines did not significantly change over the years as well as to underline the differences they nevertheless display, with the aim of identifying the factors that influenced the changes in Bacons thought. In those among the above-mentioned texts that were written as contributions to the Instauratio magna, I pay special attention to those passages that discuss Bacons theory of experimentation, his distinctions between and definitions of the sciences, as well as his theory of matter. From the instances of Sylva, I tried to find the clearest case studies and passages for the establishment of a classification of its instances as well as of a typology of experiments. As for the chapter that compares Sylva with Della Portas Magia naturalis, I have chosen as mentioned above their respective treatment of plants (centuries V and VI in Sylva and book III of the Magia naturalis), because of the significant body of text and because both authors view plants as important models for animals and humans. For my final chapter, on natural magic, I include, beyond the experiments on plants, other instances dealing with what I take to constitute Bacons forms. As my textual source I have used the Oxford Francis Bacon (indicated as OFB in the footnotes) for all texts that have already been published in this series. For all other works, I 4 The Abecedarium novum naturae was never published by Bacon. Its place within the project of the Instauratio

is still unclear. The book is a list of definitions of all simple schematisms, simple and compound motions, measurements of motions, greater masses and conditions of being. Bacons idea was that nature is written in an alphabet and all the letters can be discovered and defined with the aim of applying them for the creation of new words, in the sense of new objects. It is mention if the Historia naturalis when he explains the existence of pairs of schematisms among the subjects of the natural histories, which suggests that Bacon was planning to publish it, but did not have the chance. 5 The New Atlantis was published posthumously, together with Sylva sylvarum, in 1626 or 1627. As almost all of

Bacons works, it is unfinished. The book presents the story of an unknown island, where science is advanced and life is better for all the citizens. At its centre stands a scientific community, charged with the dissemination and communication of knowledge. The standard interpretation of this fable is that Bacons aim was to show what society would look like and how human life would be much improved if his model of science was performed. 6 Valerius terminus or the interpretation of nature was probably written in 1603, but first published in the

nineteenth-century edition of Bacons works. It is a fragmentary work, which includes discussions on the scope of knowledge, the errors of the human mind and the discovery of forms. 7 The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning divine and human,

dedicated to King James I, was written in 1605. The first book describes the deficiencies of the sciences as performed in Bacons days, and is at the same time a defence of knowledge against possible attacks. The second is a manifesto in favour of a reformation of knowledge and its disciplines. Bacon was hoping that the new king will patronize such an enterprise for the advancement of knowledge. 8 The Descriptio globi intellectualis was written in 1612 and was meant to represent the first part of the

Instauratio magna, for the divisions of sciences. It was left unfinished and, as has already been mentioned, in 1623 Bacon published De augmentis on the same topic. 9 The De sapientia veterum was first published in 1609, and went to several editions during Bacons life. It

relates the fables of the ancients, interpreting them in the key of natural or moral philosophy. Bacon considers these fables to contain seeds of knowledge, if correctly interpreted.

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have used the nineteenth-century edition (indicated as SEH in the footnotes). For my quotations, I used the English translations throughout. However, in all texts that were published in Latin, I compared the translation with the Latin. Wherever I felt that the translation did not capture the exact sense of the Latin, I used my own translation, indicating deviations in the footnotes. For Giambattista Della Portas Magia naturalis, I used the first English translation of 1658, which I once again compared with the Latin original, indicating my changes in the footnotes. Hugh Platts Floraes Paradise was quoted from its original first edition from 1608, written in English.

Structure of the dissertation This dissertation is composed of five chapters. In the first chapter, Bacon, Natural Philosophy and Magic: A Survey of the Status Quaestionis, I offer an overview of the available scholarship on the themes relevant for this dissertation, that is to say, regarding the influence on Bacon of the occult sciences of the Renaissance, the operative character of

Bacons natural philosophy, his natural and experimental histories, his method of induction and his matter theory. The aim of this chapter is, on the one hand, to provide a starting point for the following chapters, and, on the other, to show, through a comparison with Bacons texts, why some interpretations are not accurate or complete. This survey also documents that Sylva sylvarum has been neglected by Bacon scholars, and explains why this happened. The reasons for this neglect will be rejected here; the subsequent chapters will instead fill the lacuna. From chapter 1, it will also become clear why a comparison of Bacons experiments with their textual sources and a reconstruction of Bacons science of magic are indeed necessary.

The second chapter, entitled Sylva Sylvarum in the Context of Bacons Natural Philosophy, offers an introductory study of Sylva sylvarum. An analysis of the instances of which it is composed and a comparison with those of the histories included in the Historia naturalis et experimentalis will show the similarities between Sylva and the Latin histories. I believe that Sylva is not an imperfect natural history, nor a commonplace book. It will be seen that Sylva is composed of regular sensory observations, interventionist experiments, theoretical considerations, methodological advice, medical receipts, natural divination and spiritual magic, in the same manner that the Latin natural histories are composed of all these different instances. To be sure, this chapter will not solve all the mysteries surrounding this book, such as its structure or composition, but it will show why Sylva may not be dismissed as

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unimportant. Moreover, my claim is that its lack of structure represents Bacons method for the selection of readers: its unity hidden behind the apparently different phenomena is to be discovered only by those prepared for this. The others can only use the knowledge of Sylva at a very basic level to improve their lives or to understand certain phenomena. The third chapter, Types of Experiments of Light in Sylva sylvarum, will provide a classification of those experiments that Bacon conducted for the production of knowledge and which he himself called experiments of light. It will be shown that the previous functions attributed to Bacons experiments, either in Sylva or in the Latin natural histories, do not cover the entire diversity of Baconian experimentation. This classification will start with the less complex ones and proceed to the most complex ones, both in terms of the experimental set-up and the of type of results they provide. In our typology of six classes, the first one is composed of those experiments that illustrate Bacons matter theory as established in his speculative writings. There are furthermore classes of experiments the task of which it is to

refute existing experiments or theories. Though they do not provide positive knowledge, they are still important for the natural histories, because they cleanse them of wrong conceptions and give science the possibility to advance. The last three types of experiments have as their function to study the changes of bodies during a given process, to transform the imperceptible processes of nature into perceptible ones, and to work on simplified models on those occasions when the objects under investigation cannot be directly examined. The results of these experiments are very different: for the fourth class they just establish changes in the bodies, but changes which can be further used to establish common characteristics of bodies at the deeper level of matter theory. The fifth render experimentation, and thus knowledge, possible where it is difficult or impossible to obtain sensory access. The last class permits the transfer of knowledge from one group (under study) to another one, that has the same characteristics, using the frst as the simplified model of the second. This classification will be used later in the dissertation in the proof that these last three types of experiments realize the passage from physics to metaphysics and from metaphysics to magic. Chapter four, entitled A Case Study on Bacons Use of Sources: Experiments with Plants in Sylva sylvarum and the Magia naturalis, deals with the issue of the sources of Sylva. Since the publication of Bacons works in the second half on the nineteenth century, Giambattista Della Portas Magia naturalis has been recognized as Bacons major source for his Sylva. However, no comparison of the two texts has ever been carried out, and the secondary literature has limited itself to insisting endlessly that a big number of instances in Sylva are copied by Bacon. I will try to fill that lacuna by providing a detailed comparison

15

between the two texts, conducting an in-depth analysis of the plant and agricultural experiments. In the process, it will become clear how original Bacons ways of borrowing and adjusting the instances taken from Della Portas book have really been. We will find that the main changes he introduced into Della Portas experiments have to do with generalizations, the addition of explanatory causes and the methodological criticism of Della Portas experimentation, proving that Bacon and Della Porta have different interests in the same experiments. This chapter will also introduce a new source for Bacons experiments on plants, namely Hugh Platts Floraes paradise and document how Bacon criticized some of Della Portas experiments on the basis of Platts experimental reports and by adding his own experiments and theories to both of them. In the light of this hitherto unknown source, new light will be thrown on Bacons method of using previous histories. Not only did he not simply copy experiments from other books, but he carefully selected and transformed them, compared sources and kept for his own history only those experiments that seemed both reliable and useful, either for the discovery of the processes of nature, or for the production of greater effects, or even for the refuting of wrong theories and experiments. The final chapter, Sylva sylvarum and the Baconian Science of Magic, reinterprets this book in the larger context of Bacons conception of natural magic and in comparison with Della Portas own book on magic, the Magia naturalis. In order to understand what for Bacon the exact office of magic consisted in, it is necessary to give a definition of forms and also of the relation between the main Baconian disciplines, that is, the two pairs of physics and metaphysics as well as mechanics and magic, because they are connected with one another, and each occupies an important role in the construction of knowledge and in the discovery or manipulation of the elements out of which nature is composed. Our excursion into Bacons theory of matter will allow us to connect some concepts

that have been discussed in separation in the secondary literature and have therefore misled scholars into claiming that Bacons system is not coherent. Through a detailed study of Bacons examples of induction and of the relation between schematisms of matter, simple motions, and appetites, we will be able to define his concept of form. This definition, in turn, will help us show that many experiments in Sylva sylvarum are nothing if not attempts to modify and superinduce forms upon bodies, which is precisely what the task of natural magic consists in. It will also be shown how Bacon used Della Portas experiments in an original way, as a basis upon which a true natural magic could be constructed, and how the essential concept of magic differed for the two authors, Bacon seeing his magic much superior to Della Portas.

16

When taken together, all these arguments should suffice to indicate to the reader that Sylva sylvarum constituted an important project for Francis Bacon, and should indeed be read as one of Bacons most important writings. Various of his 1,000 instances represent his

proposal of a reform of natural magic. If this is indeed the case, it follows that before his death, Bacon managed to deliver, at least in a draft version, a complete method for the instauration of man as a creature that possesses the means to interpret nature and the power to transform it. Of, course, this should not be seen as a finished method, but as something that has the character of a model. By applying to the whole nature what Bacon managed to do only to a very restrained range of phenomena and groups of objects, nature can be truly manipulated.

17

Chapter 1. Bacon, Natural Philosophy and Magic: A Survey of the Status Quaestionis

1. 1. Introduction

Bacons writings are notoriously fragmentary, even though they speak of related subjects. Certain themes resurface throughout his works. For this reason, it is impossible to discuss an individual issue without referring to many others, and indeed to Bacons philosophy as a whole. These two characteristics of Bacons writings their fragmentary character and their thematic interrelatedness have led to many misinterpretations of Bacons theories as well as to conflicting interpretations in the secondary literature, notably when scholars have decided to focus on one problem or text to the exclusion of others, while the solution to the question they tried to answer was located in fragments elsewhere. It is the purpose of this chapter to construct a map of scholarly discussions concerning Bacons natural philosophy. Given the main theme of this thesis the nature and purpose of the Sylva sylvarum I shall focus on Bacons operative science and the way in which it was influenced by the occult sciences of the Renaissance, which have always been considered to be the source of Bacons preference for operational science. Particularly relevant will be the place, in Bacons overall philosophy of natural history, of the theory of experimentation, of

induction and of matter theory. In my analysis of debates conducted in the secondary literature, I shall also attempt to account for misreadings, so as to justify my attempt at a new analysis of Bacons natural historical and magical texts. Let us therefore delve into the Baconian literature of the past half century, so as to understand better where we stand at present and which issues still await a solution.

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1. 2. The beginning of the contemporary debate: Thorndike and Rossi

Lynn Thorndikes encyclopaedic A History of Magic and Experimental Science dedicates an entire chapter to Francis Bacon.10 Thorndike there accuses Bacon of taking what did not belong to him in the sphere of philosophy, as well as in his career as Lord Chancellor, describing his scientific method as useless and accusing him of having accomplished no scientific feat. Thorndike then presents several of Bacons ideas concerning method, experimentation, natural history, astronomy, astrology, biology, medicine, witchcraft and logic, without any explanation of the reasons which led Bacon to affirm these ideas, and instead corrects him in some cases by pitting against him, quite anachronistically, the modern scientific explanation of a given phenomenon. In conclusion, Thorndike affirms that

there is not much that one can say for Francis Bacon. He was a crooked chancellor in a moral sense and a crooked naturalist in an intellectual and scientific sense. He did not think straight. [...] Even a Lord High Chancellor, even a Francis Bacon, could not think straight when he thought as a naturalist and tried to amass experiments on the one hand and to grapple with magical tradition and superstition on the other hand. The path of magical and experimental science was no straight and narrow one; it was not true, and its course did not run smooth. It was a relatively easy thing to criticize the past and present state of learning, and to advocate a new program including experimental science. [...] But when it came to getting down off ones high horse of generalities and putting ones shoulder to the problem of particular phenomena of nature and dealing with specific facts and beliefs and traditional errors, Francis Bacon was as helpless as Pliny was in antiquity or as any one

else was in the early seventeenth century. The best that any one can say for him is that he really tried. It must be admitted, however, that he was much cited and admired by many writers of his century.11

Alas, Thorndike does not attempt to explain why Bacon, despite his allegedly crooked and useless philosophy, was nevertheless much cited and admired by many of his contemporaries. If this description of Bacons philosophy were accurate, his success in the 10

Thorndike, History of Magic, vol. VII, 63-88. 11

Ibid., 88.

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seventeenth century would indeed be hard to understand. For this reason, and despite Thorndikes advice, subsequent historians of philosophy have taken a great interest in Bacons works. In the second half of the twentieth century, scholarly attention to Bacon was rekindled and he came to be viewed both as one of the most important figures of the Scientific Revolution and as the principal advocate of the experimental method. The start of a more balanced scholarly investigation into Bacons philosophy must be sought in Paolo Rossis Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science. According to Rossi, Bacons view of the mechanical arts and magic must be seen as a reaction to the Hermetic tradition of Renaissance magic.12 Although Rossis main interests are rhetoric, the new method of science that Bacon proposes and the development of his thought across the years, his book starts by tracing the heritage of magic, together with Bacons condemnation of it and his praise of science. In this regard, Rossis main thesis is that

the metaphysical aspect of magic and alchemy had little or no influence on Bacon; but he did borrow from this tradition the idea of science as the servant of nature assisting its operations and, by stealth and cunning, forcing it to yield to mans domination; as well as the idea of knowledge as power.13

Indeed, merely one page later, Rossi claims that Bacon regarded magic and alchemy as the ultimate aims of human endeavour. He hastens to add, however, that Bacons method is completely different from Renaissance pre-science and should rather be considered as a step towards modern science. This change, which Bacon brought about, was not influenced by the occult sciences of the Renaissance, but by the tradition of rhetoric. The Novum organum, Rossi maintains, was influenced in the first place by Ramus rhetoric. Pointing out that Bacons method for the discovery of the form of heat as described in the second book of the Novum organum is based on the method of tables taken from Ramus rhetoric, he concludes that Bacon transplanted typically rhetorical concepts into the field of natural science. In other words, Bacon was seduced by a vision of logic assisting in the classification of instances: the art of memory and the method of places.14

12

Rossi might have had Thorndikes criticism in mind when he wrote that the basic themes of Bacons philosophy are often biased and polemical. They were directed at specific objectives and may be ascribed to a definite phase of culture. This is a point that should be always kept in mind by the historians whose aim is to discover how certain traditional concepts are gradually remoulded by the demands of a given age (Francis Bacon, 11). 13

Ibid., 21. 14

Ibid., 207-14.

20

With respect to the magico-alchemical tradition, Rossi states that traditional philosophy was not, for Bacon, a fallacious philosophy, but its aims were limited and insufficient.15 When analyzing Bacons fables, Rossi returns to a discussion of his attitude towards magico-alchemical practices as evidenced by the fables of Proteus (matter) and Cupid (the atom), on one hand, and of Proserpine (the spirit) and Deucalion (the mechanic), on the other. With regard to the first two, Rossi affirms that the metamorphosis of Proteus, signifying the transformation of matter upon a process of isolation, is an idea taken from alchemy, and that his choice of a Democritean diversity of atoms was determined by his alchemical attitude to the problem of transmutation, because he believed that all substances being composed of identical particles, inquiries should be made into the appetites and inclinations of things, not into their static principles.16 In the other two fables, Bacon condemned, according to Rossi, the magico-alchemical attitude towards nature as being impatient, dogmatic and illusory, while the correct one should be humble, patient and plodding.17 However, as a reaction to this anomalous manner of producing knowledge, and by relying on the rhetorical tradition in constructing his own natural philosophy, Bacon promoted a type of discipline very close to modern science.18

1. 3. The issues at stake

Without a doubt, Rossis book opened many new directions for research in the field of Baconian studies. One of these topics is the influence of the magico-alchemical tradition of the Renaissance and its connection with Bacons science of magic. This is, in fact, the main problem to be addressed in this dissertation.

15

Ibid., 189. 16

Ibid., 99. 17

Ibid., 105: What he attacked was a presumption to dominate nature by extrinsic, miraculous interventions that would by-pass human labour and space the sweat of the human brow. To attain true results, said Bacon, a happy medium is required between the arrogance of the miracle-makers and the slothful unadventurousness of those who are content with the human lot. 18

Stephen Gaukrogers Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early Modern Philosophy goes in the same direction as Rossi. Gaukroger also views Bacon as a first step towards modern science. However, contrary to Rossi, Gaukroger maintains that Bacon did not cut himself loose from the occult sciences, but rather from philosophy. He adds that, starting with Bacon, the philosopher began to transform himself into a scientist, concerned with factual rather than speculative issues. An important assumption of his examination is the distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge, with the superiority of the latter. There are three aspects that shape Bacons understanding of natural philosophy and the superiority of practical knowledge: his classification of knowledge, the role played by mathematics and the role of eclecticism. With his classification of knowledge, Bacon aims to free natural philosophy from the constraints that had traditionally been placed upon it, constraints which prevented it from being pursued in the practical vein that Bacon envisages (225).

21

Rossis interpretation has not gone unchallenged. Sophie Weeks, for one, has drawn attention to an important error of interpretation in Rossis book. According to Weeks, it was not Bacons intention to create a scientific alternative to Renaissance magic. His magic was

not a reaction against, but rather a purification from, impostures and fantasies: Baconian reform is more correctly presented as an instauration of magic, rather than as an institutional and methodological preparative to the emergence of modern science.19 While I consider this interpretation to be correct, I believe that the best place to look for the way in which Bacon reformed the science of magic is the natural and experimental histories, and especially his last one, the posthumously published Sylva sylvarum. Fortunately, these histories, together with Bacons theory of experimentation, have started to attract the attention of scholars in recent years. Before then, the emphasis had been quite singularly on Bacons method of induction and his theory of forms. Despite Rossis claim that the occult traditions exerted only a limited influence on Bacon, the latters method, his experiments and his matter theory have subsequently been analyzed, as we shall see in detail, by a range of scholars within the context of the alchemical tradition. There are admittedly also scholars, most famously Brian Vickers, who adamantly refuse to recognize any influence of these occult sciences upon Bacons work.20

Siding with modern tendencies, and against Rossi and Vickers, I shall address five themes in this chapter while attempting to develop them further. It is my hope to redress the balance in favour of the nexus between natural history, natural philosophy, magic and experimentation, which I shall develop more fully in the main chapters of this thesis (chapters 2-5). I will start with a description of the general view of Bacons project, which is that of reforming knowledge and putting operative science at the centre of the investigation of nature (1. 4.). I will then discuss Bacons reform of natural history (1. 5.), in which the central place is occupied by experimentation (1. 6.). Finally, I will turn to Bacons method of induction and the theory of forms (1. 7.), ending with a brief discussion of his theory of matter, without which his project cannot be properly understood (1. 8.).

19

Weeks, Francis Bacons Science of Magic, 22. 20

Vickers, Francis Bacon and the Progress, 505-7 and Analogy, 133-34.

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1. 4. Bacons project, the Instauratio magna

In 1620 Bacon started a project to reform natural knowledge and restore man as the King of Creation, to the place he had lost after the Fall. The aim of this restoration was to give back to humankind the knowledge it had lost, together with its innocence.21 This knowledge, or so Bacon expected, would lead to numerous possibilities for the benefit and use of life.22 As is well known, the plan for his Instauratio magna remained unfinished. Of the six parts, Bacon started the second and the third. The first is considered the De augmentis scientiarum, and there are some unpublished texts written in this period which have an unclear place in the overall scheme. The six parts are:

1. The Partitions of the Sciences 2. Novum organum or Directions concerning the Interpretation of Nature 3. The Phenomena of the Universe or Natural and Experimental History for the

Building up of Philosophy 4. The Ladder of the Intellect 5. Precursors or Anticipations of the Philosophy to Come 6. The Philosophy to Come, or The Active Science23

Beginning with the Novum organum Bacon wrote and published two of the six books in 1620. Three years later, he published the De augmentis scientiarum, which is not officially presented as the first part of the Instauratio, but the similarities between it and the original plan have made scholars consider it as such. Instead of completing the Novum organum and thus providing his readers with true induction, Bacon started his Historia naturalis et experimentalis in 1623, with the aim of publishing six histories within three years; one every six months. From the list of six, he published in the first year the first and the last (the Historia ventorum and the Historia vitae et mortis), while the second (the Historia densi et rari) was left in manuscript form, never to be published by Bacon himself. From the other 21

IM, OFB XI, 23. On the influence of the story of the Fall of Man on Bacons project of Instauratio, see Whitney, Franciss Bacons Instauratio. For a general view of modern science as the recovery of lost knowledge, see Harrison, The Fall of Man. On religious influences on Bacons works see Briggs, Bacons Science and Religion; Milner, The Theological Foundation; McKnight, The Religious Foundation; Matthews, Theology; Georgescu, Francis Bacon. 22

IM, OFB XI, 23. Further on, in the Novum organum, Bacon defines the final aim of philosophy: the true and legitimate end of the science is nothing other than to supply human life with new discoveries and resources (NO, I, aph. 81, OFB XI, 129). 23

See Plan of the Work in IM, OFB XI, 27.

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three (the Historia gravis et levis, the Historia sulphuris, mercurii et salis and the Historia sympathiae et antipathiae rerum), there exist only introductions. As for the Sylva sylvarum: or a naturall history in ten centuries, it was published posthumously, together with The New Atlantis. William Rawley, Bacons secretary, mentions that in order to complete the Sylva, Bacon had to abandon both the Historia naturalis et experimentalis and The New Atlantis.24 The other text written in the last years of Bacons life, the Abecedarium novum naturae, was discovered in the late-twentieth century by Graham Rees, and its place is deemed to be either at the end of the third part or at the beginning of the fourth part of the Instauratio.

1. 4. 1. Operative philosophy: the influence of alchemy and magic As mentioned before, the purpose of the Instauratio magna was to restore human power over nature. Probably one of the most cited Baconian affirmations is that knowledge is power.25 The guiding idea is that knowledge of nature brings with it the possibility of its manipulation, in the sense that once the cause of a phenomenon is discovered, its reproduction becomes possible. Both the meaning and the sources for this operative vision of knowledge have been analyzed at length in the secondary source material. One of the first authors to have drawn attention to the operative side of Bacons philosophy is Benjamin Farrington. Noticing Bacons interest in craftsmens activities and in their inventions and discoveries, he argued for the idea that his philosophy was the result of a desire to combine the ability of craftsmen with learned wisdom.26 In order to do this, a reorganization of science was needed. Farrington analyzed both the unpublished and the published works, emphasizing the way in which Bacon explained his reorganization of knowledge. The origins of Bacons proposed reform, according to Farrington, were the voyages of discovery and the increased speed with which innovative inventions spread

24

Rawley, Preface SEH III, 127. 25

The quotation from the Novum organum is: Human knowledge and power come to the same thing. [...] That which in thought is equivalent to a cause, is in operation equivalent to a rule (NO I, aph. 3, OFB XI, 65). 26

What is the connection between his practical aims and his thirst for knowledge? It lies in the fact that while Bacon thought the wisdom of the learned had taken the wrong turning and become unprofitable he did not think the labours of practical men could supply the deficiencies of learned. He observed that in his day inventions and discoveries were in fact made by craftsmen. But he observed also that inventions were few, casual, and limited in scope compared with what they might be. The remedy for this was to bring learning into relation with industry and invention. His idea was not to discard the wisdom of the learned but to reform it. Farrington argues that in order to invent new arts, the limited vision of craftsmen was not enough. Theory and learning were needed (Farrington, Francis Bacon, 44-45). The same ideas can be found in Farringtons second book, of 1955, Francis Bacon: Philosopher of Planned Science.

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through Western Europe: the initial progress, in other words, of what would later become the Industrial Revolution and the religious temper of the age. When examining the unpublished texts from the period 1603-1609, Farrington argued that the magico-alchemical influences were not confined to Sylva, which Rossi had compared with the magical texts of the Renaissance, but that these influences exist also in the most carefully considered works. For example, the possibility of the transmutation of gold, which is a dominant theme in Bacon, made him modify his original atomism.27 According to Farrington, Bacon started as an alchemical atomist, but this doctrine could not account for the possibility of transmutation. Consequently, in Bacons later writings, bodies are no longer consistently thought of in terms of atomic structures, but rather as made up of simple natures. I will come back to this issue when addressing the problems which surround Bacons theory of matter.

According to Farrington, two specific ideas were crucial for Bacons philosophy: namely the idea of man as the servant and interpreter of nature and the doctrine of knowledge as power; both of which are borrowings from the magico-alchemical tradition. Farrington pointed out, however, that Bacon was in two minds about these disciplines: their aims seemed noble, but their practice wrong. His criticism of magic and alchemy (both moral and intellectual) represents, in Farringtons eyes, an essential part of Bacons contribution to science.28 Farrington maintains that Bacons conception of science is opposed to this magico-alchemical vision his own ideal of science is that of a democratic, cooperative enterprise intended for the public good, which presents not only additions to knowledge, but a new way of life, the great instauration of mans dominion over nature.29 Rossi and Farringtons claims regarding the influence of magic and alchemy on Bacon and on his operative philosophy have been developed and criticized by Muriel West, Peter Zetterberg, William Newman, Sophie Weeks and Silvia Manzo, to mention only a few prominent authors. In his article Notes on the Importance of Alchemy to Modern Science in the Writings of Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle, Muriel West attempted to show that Bacon could not have been Boyles source for his alchemical practices, given that he did not understand the alchemists obscure language, even though he extracted some general

27

Farrington, The Philosophy, 51. 28

Ibid., 52-53. Farrington traces four lines of argument in the Novum organum: 1) the operations of magicians and alchemists are confined to few experiments and to the production of few effects; 2) the auricular tradition on which their theory rests is full of impostures; 3) their attitude is corrupted by vain-glory and self-seeking; and 4) their practitioners think they are a privileged class of illuminati, and this is why they like to clothe their knowledge in an obscure and enigmatic style. 29

Ibid., 54.

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information from the alchemical literature: Bacons remarks on alchemy show considerable confusion of mind a confusion not easy to account for. He contradicts himself at every turn.30 West contends that even while censuring the alchemists, Bacon believed that such wonders as the transmutation of metals and the prolongation of life were possible if conducted correctly, and not according to the traditional recipes of the alchemists.31 West, however, does not notice that what Bacon criticizes is the method used by the alchemists, and in particular the very possibility of transmuting gold with the help of the philosophers stone or the idea of gaining immortality with the elixir of life.

Instead, West insists on the similarity between Bacons method and that of the alchemists: to make gold, one must discover the proper substance to begin with and use only a moderate heat with the temperature kept steady for a rather long period of time.32 To be sure, Bacon does need the proper substance, but this is so because not every substance can be transformed into gold. As for the heat, the process of making gold must be one of condensation: in certain conditions, heat can have this effect by the elimination of the rarer, more subtle matter. In respect to the prolongation of life, West continues, one must discover a substance that will do the same thing for the living body that known preservatives do for a dead body; Bacon recommends nitre (saltpetre) because it cools and restrains the spirits and keeps a man from wearing himself out.33 But again, Wests interpretation is mistaken: Bacon

does not have a unique substance; his method for prolonging life contains diets, medicines, ointments, and ways and places of living. The operative side of the Historia vitae et mortis is composed of ten chapters, called operations, each of which is assigned to a different part of the body, to the spirits, or even to the external air.34 Thus, for both types of alchemical operations it is impossible to claim that Bacons method is in any way similar to that of the alchemists.35

West concludes that Bacon may have realized that he could be accused of distorting the truth when he passes off as new the Experiment as his Method. He tries to justify himself by pointing out that the alchemists ignore the middle axioms while they leap back

30

West, Notes on the Importance, 103. 31

Ibid., 103-4. 32

Ibid., 104. 33

Ibid. 34

The Historia vitae et mortis was not only influenced by alchemy. In his article The History of Life and Death, Gemelli shows that Bacons medical and historical knowledge was voluminous. According to Gemelli, this history is very rich, containing contributions to history, natural history, medicine, natural philosophy and operative sciences. 35

West, Notes on the Importance, 104.

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and forth between universals and particulars.36 West does not seem to notice that Bacon accepts in the Novum organum the fact that the alchemists performed experiments and that they were indeed attempting to build up a natural philosophy, albeit out of too few experiments. The difference between their method and Bacons did not consist in a reliance on experiments, but in the way in which these were put to use. The charge Bacon levelled at the alchemists was that of anticipating nature,37 whereas the true method was that of the interpretation of nature, which required that experiments be tested and theories not be incorporated into a philosophical system before being confronted with experience in as many disciplines as possible. Moreover, and this is the main characteristic distinguishing the two approaches, the interpretation of nature includes various middle axioms: it does not jump from experience to the final theories, which, being wrong, cannot be used in production. This empirical approach conflicted with that of the alchemists, who drew premature conclusions about the entire universe on the basis of merely a few experiments with gold. In conclusion, it seems fair to say that West does not distinguish sufficiently between Bacons method and the philosophies that Bacon criticized in the doctrine of idols.38 Despite all his efforts to reform natural philosophy and eliminate existing errors, Bacon admitted that there were several traditional ideas that should be kept. Some of these were precisely the ideas of the alchemists: both the transmutation of gold and attempts at the prolongation of life were described by Bacon as noble. But since it seemed clear to him that the alchemists method did not lead to the desired results, Bacon proposed his own, improved method.39 This method

36

Ibid., 105. West also mentions the idea of Nature as a book which should be read, but Bacon never presents this idea as his own. 37

The anticipations are are gathered from a few facts, and those of the most everyday kind, they at once impress the intellect and fill the fantasy (NO I, aph. 28 OFB XI, 75). These anticipations are very difficult to eliminate from knowledge, because as Bacon states radical errors in the first digestion of the mind are not to be put right afterwards by first-rate functions and remedies (NO I, aph. 30, OFB XI, 75). Knowledge thus must start from mere experiences, since the theory invented by the alchemists are of no use. 38

Another place in which Bacon displays an ambivalent attitude is, according to West, in connection with language: Bacon had a rather pathetic (even if tacit) admission that the fanciful and tumid and half poetic style of the enigmatical writers was beyond his comprehension. He even criticizes the obscure language of the alchemists as a way of selecting their audience. Bacon also intended to exclude the vulgar from the secrets of knowledge (ibid., 106). But, once again, West did not notice that Bacons criticism was directed at a different level: indeed, he did not consider that everyone is apt to be a true son of knowledge, but that the selection of persons should not be done with an obscure language. This way of transmitting science was harmful for the advancement of the sciences, because not even the alchemists were able to communicate between themselves, while communication of information should be one of the main characteristics of science. The selection, according to Bacon, should be done through aphorists, initiation methods, etc. On the selection of scientists, see Rusu, Virtues and Collaborative Research. 39

Bernand Joly considers this interpretation of Bacons attitude towards alchemists to be based on our tendency to consider alchemy an irrational science, as well as on our superficiality in distinguishing between those alchemists criticized by Bacon and those accepted and integrated into his works (Joly, Francis Bacon). Joly rightly concludes that alchemy could easily be transformed into a serious science once it adopted the Baconian scientific method.

27

had to start with the collection of natural histories and arrive at final theories only toward the end of the investigation.

I shall, for this reason, have to discuss the issue of natural histories and stress the central role of the history of the arts, which are based on experiments. I will thereafter move to the theme of natural philosophy and the issue of induction and the discovery of forms.

1. 4. 2. The history of arts and the role of the efficient cause The investigation of nature should start, according to Bacon, with collecting facts and experiments about nature. In other words, natural and experimental histories should be the first disciplines to be studied. They are composed of the history of generation, preter-generations and art. The first two are descriptions of nature (either left by herself, in the case of generations; or studying its deviations, in the case of preter-generations), while the last is composed of experiments in which nature is constrained to unveil herself, since not everything can be discovered through descriptions of phenomena. It is at this level that the operative character can be seen. This combination of natural and artificial phenomena within the same natural and artificial history has led to a scholarly debate about the role of art. Paolo Rossi has claimed that in the art-nature debate, Bacon was principally influenced by so-called mechanical discoveries such as gunpowder, the mariners compass or the printing press.40 Moreover, he affirmed that Bacon was the first to have established that natural and artificial objects differed only in their efficient cause, while their material and formal causes coincided. With this view, he radically changed, according to Rossi, the conception of the relation between art and nature; conceptions that had dominated the history of philosophy from Aristotle up to Bacons own time. Rossi based his affirmation on Bacons statement in the De augmentis scientiarum, that the artificial does not differ from the natural in form or essence, but only in the efficient.41 Against this, William Newmans Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature argues that Bacons position was not as original as Rossi claimed, and that Aristotelian alchemists such as Themo Judaei and Daniel Sennert had already made significant and analogous contributions to the discussion about the distinction between natural

40

Rossi, Francis Bacon, 26 and Bacons Ideas of Science, 31-43. 41

DAS II, chap. II, SEH IV, 294. See also DGI, OFB VI, 103.

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and artificial and to the role played by experimentation.42 What is important, according to Newman, is not that Bacon identified the products of art with those of nature (as Rossi had claimed), but that he placed the difference between art and nature in the efficient cause, as several alchemical authors in the High Middle Ages had done. In conclusion, the famous trumpeter (bucinator) of experimental science was a major beneficiary of the art-nature debate.43 Still in response to Paolo Rossi, Newman states that an alchemical influence can also

be seen easily in other areas, for example in the image of experimentalism as Proteus bound,44 the connections between the bonds of Proteus and the powers of heat, the discussion about the impossibility of annihilating matter, and the recognition that artificial heat can accelerate natural processes, or the essential heterogeneity between the heat of sun and that of fire. Newman concludes that it would not be an exaggeration to say that the art of chymistry was for Bacon the model upon which he built his concept of experiment pushing nature to the limit, so that it would reveal its deepest secrets.45 Joining this debate on the art-nature distinction in Bacons natural philosophy, Sophie Weeks has maintained that Rossis and Newmans approaches are equally mistaken, as they do not take into account the cosmological foundation of Bacons philosophy. Bacons concept of the artificial relies on more than a mere difference in efficient causation.46 According to Weeks, Bacons most important contribution to science lies in his conception of magic, which works through a recapitulation of the very processes that gave rise to our current nature.47

According to this view, the natural world has come about as a result of magical, natural activities, thanks to which the smallest bodies were united with each other. Experimental natural philosophy aims at the repetition of these very activities. This is why the products of art and those of nature differ only with respect to their efficient cause. The existing world and the objects it contains do not exhaust the possibilities of matter; there are potentially many 42

Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 256: Just as Themo Judaei articulated a concept of makers knowledge that was implicitly used by many a medieval and early modern alchemist, so Daniel Sennert gave voice to a view of experimental intervention and isolation that he drew from the practices described in a multitude of alchemical texts. The significance of Themo and Sennert lies less in their originality in the laboratory than in the fact that they brought tacit experimental practices into the full purview of academic natural philosophy. The same may be said a fortiori for the great propagandist of experimental science Francis Bacon, who also owed an open and substantial debt to the Scholastic debate on art and nature. [...] An examination of Bacon will reveal views that are in significant respects identical to those of Themo and Sennert and dependent on the same general sources. 43

Ibid., 260. 44

Newman names here Willem Mennens Aureum vellus (1604) and Blaise de Vigenres De igne et sale (1608). 45

Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 265. 46

According to Weeks, it is not enough to establish the characteristics of Bacons conception of art just on the basis of the above-cited quotation from the De augmentis, which could moreover be invoked in support of both Rossis and Newmans visions of the matter. 47

Weeks, Francis Bacon, 121.

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other objects that matter has the power to bring forth.48 For Weeks, preter-generations represent the proof that nature has dormant powers which come into being even in the fixed system of the actual world.49 They are a result of impediments and represent a confirmation that the system is not irrevocably stabilized. According to Weeks interpretation, there exist two kinds of artificial products: imitationes naturae and artificialia or nova.50 The first type imitates already existing objects, while the second does not, nor can exist without human intervention. True nova, Weeks writes, lie outside natures ordinary course. Because of this, Bacons science of magic must be seen as a science of deviation.51 These ideas can be schematized, as in Figure 1 below.

Fig. 1: The relationship between naturalia and artificialia52

Yet another conception of the aim of Bacons science is proposed in J. Peter Zetterbergs article Echoes of Nature in Solomons House. According to Zetterberg, what is central to 48

Ibid., 130-31: Natures ordinary course (the current world) represents only a single facet of the possible facets that nature could potentially present. This leads to the striking tenet that forms the cornerstone of Bacons programme, namely, that the artful manipulation of bodies involves a recapitulation of the original binding activity of Cupid. In Bacons programme, art refers to the shifting of the current system out of its habitual course in order to actualise hidden facets of nature. In brief, art for Bacon is the operative analogue of the primary cosmogonical contraction exercised in Cupids restraining and binding of matters absolute potency. 49

In Weeks dissertation, preter-generations are considered to offer immediate sensory confirmation that nature's fecundity extends beyond its ordinary course and that the dynamical network of motions is not irrevocably stabilised and is therefore capable of further distortion via human operative power (Francis Bacons Science, 76). 50

This idea, though less developed, can also be found in Antonio Prez-Ramos, who contends that what is characteristic for Bacons operative science is exactly the fact that its scope is not limited to the actual world, but also aims at what can possibly be brought into existence once the constitution of things is known. In an ideal world, the philosopher would be able to produce new forms. This feat is possible by combining existing simple natures (Francis Bacon, 101). 51

Weeks, Francis Bacon, 135-36: This science engages in the systematic production of heteroclites or marvels through the precise application of impediments resulting in things that lie outside natures habitual paths. In the Novum organum, he says, nature of herself supplies these sparingly, but what she may do when her folds have been shaken out ... time will show (NO II, aph. 51, OFB XI, 442). 52

Ibid., 135. See also Weeks, Francis Bacons Science of Magic, 210. The dark area represents the ordinary species of animals, plants, and minerals. Within the grey area are to be found the imitations of nature, which can be produced both by nature and by man (such as gold found in sand or gold rarefied in furnaces, the first belonging to the realm of naturalia and the second to artificalia). It is in the third, the white area consisting of objects that represent, according to Weeks, where the objects of magic are to be found: those bodies which cannot exist except by the hand of man, and which represent the true aim of Bacons operative science.

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Bacons philosophy is the imitation of nature. Zetterberg agrees with Rossi that Bacon abolished the ancient distinction between the natural and the artificial, arguing that of those practices which seem to have influenced Bacon, imitation was always foremost: in alchemy, for instance, imitation played its role in the transformation of other metals into gold, while in the mechanical arts what was imitated were the heavens.53 Zetterberg describes Salomons House in The New Atlantis as an artificial world, carefully fashioned and crafted in imitation of the natural world.54 To this, he adds that, for his description of Salomons House, Bacon used reports of experiments related in Della Portas Natural Magic,55 as well as by Cornelis Drebbel and Salomon de Caus,56 and probably also John Dees Mathematicall Preface, Thaumaturgike and Archemastrie, Cornelius Agrippas Vanities and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences and Roger Bacons engines. However, he stops short of claiming that Bacon was unoriginal: rather, what is new about him is the larger context of natural philosophy in which the doctrine assumes its new meaning.57 None of these authors, however, mentions in their respective analyses of Bacons

discussion of causes an important complication. It is of course correct that Bacon recognizes the difference between the natural and the artificial to reside in the efficient cause. Still, later in the De augmentis, in the context of his discussion of the distinction between physics and metaphysics, he states that the efficient cause of objects is neither man nor nature. The efficient cause must be sought rather in those objects which serve as the vehicles of form for example, the whiteness present in ice, air and water.58 It therefore seems that man and nature are remote efficient causes, while the immediate ones are the object-causing changes in nature. Bacons conception of the efficient cause is thus more original and, at the same time, more complex than would appear in light of the oft-quoted passage from Book III of the De augmentis.

53

Zetterberg, Echoes of Nature, 180: [] in natural magic, the practical or applied science of the age, the objective as announced was also always imitation. Further, the author gives some examples of representative figures of these practices and the way in which they use the term imitation, arguing that Bacon was undoubtedly familiar with this literature. 54

Ibid., 187. 55

The basis of