Note 147 — APHORISMS—BOOK II ON THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE, OR THE REIGN OF MAN (continued 3)

We have already alluded, in a note prefixed to the same aphorism of the first book, to Newton’s error of the absolute lightness of bodies. In speaking again of the volatile or spiritual substances (Aph. xl. b. ii.) which he supposed with the Platonists and some of the schoolmen to enter into the composition of every body, he ascribes to them a power of lessening the weight of the material coating in which he supposes them inclosed. It would appear from these passages and the text that Bacon had no idea of the relative density of bodies, and the capability which some have to diminish the specific gravity of the heavier substances by the dilation of their parts; or if he had, the reveries in which Aristotle indulged in treating of the soul, about the appetency of bodies to fly to kindred substances—flame and spirit to the sky, and solid opaque substances to the earth, must have vitiated his mind.—Ed.