Valerius Terminus | Page 4

partly from the
style in which it is written, and partly from its being only a fragment. It
is at the same time full of interest, inasmuch as it is the earliest type of
the INSTAURATIO...
Note to Preface by James Spedding:
The manuscript from which Robert Stephens printed these fragments
was found among some loose papers placed in his hands by the Earl of
Oxford, and is now in the British Museum; Harl. manuscripts 6462. It
is a thin paper volume of the quarto size, written in the hand of one of
Bacon's servants, with corrections, erasures, and interlineations in his
own.
The chapters of which it consists are both imperfect in themselves (all
but three),--some breaking off abruptly, others being little more than
tables of contents,--and imperfect in their connexion with each other; so
much so as to suggest the idea of a number of separate papers loosely
put together. But it was not so (and the fact is important) that the
volume itself was actually made up. However they came together, they
are here fairly and consecutively copied out. Though it be a collection
of fragments therefore, it is such a collection as Bacon thought worthy
not only of being preserved, but of being transcribed into a volume; and
a particular account of it will not be out of place.
The contents of the manuscript before Bacon touched it may be thus
described.
1. A titlepage, on which is written "VALERIUS TERMINUS of the
Interpretation of Nature, with the annotations of HERMES STELLA."

2. "Chapter I. Of the limits and end of knowledge;" with a running title,
"Of the Interpretation of Nature."
3. "The chapter immediately following the Inventory; being the 11th in
order."
4. "A part of the 9th chapter, immediately precedent to the Inventory,
and inducing the same."
5. "The Inventory, or an enumeration and view of inventions already
discovered and in use, together with a note of the wants and the nature
of the supplies; being the 10th chapter, and this a fragment only of the
same."
6. Part of a chapter, not numbered, "Of the internal and profound errors
and superstitions in the nature of the mind, and of the four sorts of Idols
or fictions which offer themselves to the understanding in the
inquisition of knowledge."
7. "Of the impediments of knowledge; being the third chapter, the
preface only of it."
8. "Of the impediments which have been in the times and in diversion
of wits; being the fourth chapter."
9. "Of the impediments of knowledge for want of a true succession of
wits, and that hitherto the length of one man's life hath been the greatest
measure of knowledge; being the fifth chapter."
10. "That the pretended succession of wits hath been evil placed,
forasmuch as after variety of sects and opinions the most popular and
not the truest prevaileth and weareth out the rest; being the sixth
chapter."
11. "Of the impediments of knowledge in handling it by parts, and in
slipping off particular sciences from the root and stock of universal
knowledge; being the seventh chapter."

12. "That the end and scope of knowledge hath been generally mistaken,
and that men were never well advised what it was they sought" (part of
a chapter not numbered).
13. "An abridgment of divers chapters of the first book;" namely, the
l2th, 13th, and 14th, (over which is a running title "Of active
knowledge;") and (without any running title) the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th],
19th, 21st, 22nd, 25th, and 26th. These abridgments have no headings;
and at the end is written, "The end of the Abridgment of the first book
of the Interpretation of Nature."
Such was the arrangement of the manuscript as the transcriber left it;
which I have thought worth preserving, because I seem to see traces in
it of two separate stages in the developement of the work; the order of
the chapters as they are transcribed being probably the same in which
Bacon wrote them; and the numbers inserted at the end of the headings
indicating the order in which, when he placed them in the transcriber's
hands, it was his intention to arrange them; and because it proves at any
rate that at that time the design of the whole book was clearly laid out
in his mind.
There is nothing, unfortunately, to fix the DATE of the transcript,
unless it be implied in certain astronomical or astrological symbols
written on the blank outside of the volume; in which the figures 1603
occur. This may possibly be the transcriber's note of the time when he
finished his work; for which (but for one circumstance which I shall
mention presently) I should think the year 1603 is likely a date as any;
for we know from a letter of Bacon's,