example, when the surface of iron becomes rusty, or when water is converted into steam, some change has taken place, or latent process from one form to another. Mechanics afford many exemplifications of the first latent process we have denoted, and chemistry of the second. The _latens schematismus_ is that visible structure of bodies on which so many of their properties depend. When we inquire into the constitution of crystals, and into the internal structure of plants, we are examining into their latent schematism.--_Ed._ [76] By the recent discoveries in electric magnetism, copper wires, or, indeed, wires of any metal, may be transformed into magnets; the magnetic law, or form, having been to that extent discovered. [77] Haller has pursued this investigation in his “Physiology,” and has left his successors little else to do than repeat his discoveries.--_Ed._ [78] Bacon here first seems pregnant with the important development of the higher calculus, which, in the hands of Newton and Descartes, was to effect as great a revolution in philosophy as his method.--_Ed._ [79] By spirit, Bacon here plainly implies material fluid too fine to be grasped by the unassisted sense, which rather operates than reasons. We sometimes adopt the same mode of expression, as in the words spirits of nitre, spirits of wine. Some such agency has been assumed by nearly all the modern physicists, a few of whom, along with Bacon, would leave us to gather from their expressions, that they believe such bodies endowed with the sentient powers of perception. As another specimen of his sentiment on this subject, we may refer to a paragraph on the decomposition of compounds, in his essay on death, beginning--“The spirit which exists in all living bodies, keeps all the parts in due subjection; when it escapes, the body decomposes, or the similar parts unite.”--_Ed._ [80] The theory of the Epicureans and others. The atoms are supposed to be invisible, unalterable particles, endued with all the properties of the given body, and forming that body by their union. They must be separated, of course, which either takes a vacuum for granted, or introduces a tertium quid into the composition of the body. [81] Compare the three following aphorisms with the last three chapters of the third book of the “De Augmentis Scientiarum.”