Sylva Sylvarum, Or, A Naturall History, In Ten Centuries. Written by the Right Honorable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount of St. Alban. Published after the Authors Death, By William Rawley, Doctor in Divinitie, One of His Majesties Chaplaines. Hereunto is now added an Alphabeticall Table of the Principall Things contained in the Ten Centuries
London: 1635: Printed by John Haviland for William Lee, and are to be Sold by Iohn Williams, 1635. The engraved title page and portrait of Bacon dated to 1631 and 1631 respectively are both present in this volume. With the bookplate of Abel Smith Woodhall Park. This copy is bound in 18TH CENTURY QUARTER Calf Binding tight and firm, recently rebacked.
Printed: 1635 1561-1626 Folio, 7 x 104 in Fourth edition p2, A-Z6, Aa-Bb6, Cc4, a-g4 (g4 is blank)
The new method [Bacon's big plan, the Instauratio Magna] is valueless, because inapplicable, unless it be supplied with materials duly collected and presented-in fact, unless there be formed a competent natural history of the Phenomena Universi A short introductory sketch of the requisites of such a natural history, which, according to Bacon, is essential, necessary, the basis totius negotii, is given in the tract Parasceve, appended to the Novum Organum The principal works intended to form portions of the history, and either published by himself or left in manuscript, are historia Ventorum, Historia Vitae et Mortis, Historia Densi et Rari, and the extensive collection of facts and observations entitled Sylva Sylvarum []
"Nature thus presented itself to Bacon's mind as a huge congeries of phenomena, the manifestations of some simple and primitive qualities, which were hid from us by the complexity of the things themselves The world was a vast labyrinth, amid the windings of which we require some clue or thread whereby we may track our way to knowledge and thence to power This thread, the filum labyrinthi, is the new method of induction But, as has been frequently pointed out, the new method could not be applied until facts had been observed and collected This is an indispensable preliminary 'Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much, and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature; beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything' The proposition that our knowledge of nature necessarily begins with observation and experience, is common to Bacon and many contemporary reformers of science, but he laid peculiar stress upon it, and gave it a new meaning What he really meant by observation was a competent natural history or collection of facts 'The firm foundation of a purer natural philosophy are laid in natural history' 'First of all we must prepare a natural and experimental history, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all" (EB)
This book is 'the foundation of all,' consisting of all of Bacon's empirical experiments along with his utopian fable, The New Atlantis
Price: $2,800.00