Valerius Terminus | Page 6

tells us that there are
two points of much purpose pertaining to the department of Natural
Magic: the first of which is, "That there be made a calendar resembling
an Inventory of the ESTATE OF MAN, containing ALL THE
INVENTIONS, BEING THE WORKS OR FRUITS OF NATURE OR
ART, which are now extant AND OF WHICH MAN IS ALREADY
POSSESSED; out of which doth naturally result a note what things are
yet held impossible or not invented; which calendar will be the more
artificial and serviceable if to every reputed impossibility you add what

thing is extant which cometh the nearest in degree to that impossibility:
to the end that by these optatives and essentials man's inquiry may be
the more awake in deducing direction of works from the speculation of
causes."
The Inventory which was to have been inserted in the 10th chapter of
VALERIUS TERMINUS is thus introduced:--"The plainest method
and most directly pertinent to this intention will be to make distribution
of SCIENCES, ARTS, INVENTIONS, WORKS, and their portions,
ACCORDING TO THE USE AND TRIBUTE WHICH THEY YIELD
AND RENDER TO THE CONDITION OF MAN'S LIFE; and under
those several uses, being as several offices of provisions, to charge and
tax what may be reasonably exacted or demanded,... and then upon
those charges and taxations to distinguish and present as it were in
several columns what is extant and already found, and what is
DEFECTIVE AND FURTHER TO BE PROVIDED. Of which
provisions because in many of them, after the manner of slothful and
faulty accomptants, it will be returned by way of excuse that no such
are to be had, it will be fit to give some light OF THE NATURE OF
THE SUPPLIES; whereby it will evidently appear that they are to be
compassed and procured." And that the calendar was to deal, not with
knowledge in general, but only with arts and sciences of invention in its
more restricted sense--the PARS OPERATIVA DE NATURA (DE
AUG. iii. 5.)--appears no less clearly from the opening of the 11th
chapter, which was designed immediately to follow the "Inventory." "It
appeareth then what is now in proposition, not by general
circumlocution but by particular note. No former philosophy," etc. etc.
"but the revealing and discovering of NEW INVENTIONS AND
OPERATIONS,... the nature and kinds of which inventions HAVE
BEEN DESCRIBED as they could be discovered," etc. If further
evidence were required of the exact resemblance between the Inventory
of VALERIUS TERMINUS and the Inventarium of the
ADVANCEMENT and the DE AUGMENTIS, I might quote the end of
the 9th chapter, where the particular expressions correspond, if possible,
more closely still. But I presume that the passages which I have given
are enough; and that the opinion which I have elsewhere expressed as
to the origin of the ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,--namely, that

the writing of it was a by-thought and no part of the work on the
Interpretation of Nature as originally designed,--will not be considered
inconsistent with the evidence afforded by these fragments.
That the VALERIUS TERMINUS was composed before the
ADVANCEMENT, though a conclusion not deducible from the
Inventory, is nevertheless probable: but to suppose that it was so
composed EXACTLY IN ITS PRESENT FORM, involves, as I said, a
difficulty; which I will now state. The point is interesting, as bearing
directly upon the developement in Bacon's mind of the doctrine of Idols;
concerning which see preface to NOVUM ORGANUM, note C. But I
have to deal with it here merely as bearing upon the probable date of
this fragment.
In treating of the department of Logic in the ADVANCEMENT, Bacon
notices as altogether wanting "the particular elenches or cautions
against three false appearances" or fallacies by which the mind of man
is beset: the "caution" of which, he says, "doth extremely import the
true conduct of human judgment." These false appearances he describes,
though he does not give their names; and they correspond respectively
to what he afterwards called the Idols of the Tribe, the Cave, and the
Forum. But he makes no mention of the fourth; namely, the Idols of the
Theatre. Now in VALERIUS TERMINUS we find two separate
passages in which the Idols are mentioned; and in both all four are
enumerated, and all by name; though what he afterwards called Idols of
the Forum, he there calls Idols of the Palace; and it seems to me very
unlikely that, if when he wrote the ADVANCEMENT he had already
formed that classification he should have omitted all mention of the
Idols of the Theatre; for though it is true that that was not the place to
discuss them, and therefore in the corresponding passage of the DE
AUGMENTIS they are noticed as to be passed by "for the present," yet
they are noticed