"FrancisBacon-ValeriusTerminus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bacon Francis)

curves and with letters imperfectly formed and connected, which he
wrote in Elizabeth's time, to a small, neat, light, and compact one,
formed more upon the Italian model which was then coming into fashion;
and when these corrections were made it is evident that this new
character had become natural to him and easy. It is of course
impossible to fix the precise date of such a change,--the more so
because his autographs of this period are very scarce,--but whenever
it was that he corrected this manuscript, it is evident that he then
considered it worthy of careful revision. He has not merely inserted
a sentence here and there, altered the numbers of the chapters, and
added words to the headings in order to make the description more
exact; but he has taken the trouble to add the running title wherever
it was wanting, thus writing the words "of the Interpretation of
Nature" at full lengths not less than eighteen times over; and upon
the blank space of the titlepage he has written out a complete table
of contents. In short, if he had been preparing the manuscript for
the press or for a fresh transcript, he could not have done it more
completely or carefully,--only that he has given no directions for
altering the order of the chapters so as to make it correspond with
the numbers. And hence I infer that up to the time when he made
these corrections, this was the form of the great work on which he
was engaged: it was a work concerning the Interpretation of Nature;
which was to begin where the NOVUM ORGANUM begins; and of which the
first book was to include all the preliminary considerations
preparatory to the exposition of the formula.

I place this fragment here in deference to Mr. Ellis's decided
opinion that it was written before the ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. The
positive ground indeed which he alleges in support of that conclusion
I am obliged to set aside, as founded, I think, upon a
misapprehension; and the supposition that no part of it was written
later involves a difficulty which I cannot yet get over to my own
satisfaction. But that the body of it was written earlier I see no
reason to doubt; and if so, this is its proper place.

The particular point on which I venture to disagree with Mr. Ellis I
have stated in a note upon his preface to the NOVUM ORGANUM,
promising at the same time a fuller explanation of the grounds of my
own conclusion, which I will now give.

The question is, whether the "Inventory" in the 10th chapter of
VALERIUS TERMINUS was to have exhibited a general survey of the state
of knowledge corresponding with that which fills the second book of
the ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. I think not.

It is true indeed that the title of that 10th chapter,--namely, "The
Inventory, or an enumeration and view of inventions already
discovered and in use, with a note of the wants and the nature of the
supplies",--has at first sight a considerable resemblance to the
description of the contents of the second book of the ADVANCEMENT OF