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Rethinking Sylva Sylvarum: Francis Bacon's Use of Giambattista Della

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Rethinking Sylva Sylvarum: Francis Bacon's Use of Giambattista Della Rethinking Sylva sylvarum: Francis Bacon’sUseof Giambattista Della Porta’s Magia naturalis Doina-Cristina Rusu University of Bucharest This article analyzes the relation between Francis Bacon’s Sylva sylvarum one of its most important sources, Giovan Barttista Della Porta’s Magia naturalis. I claim that Bacon used Della Porta’s experimental reports as a basis upon which he built his science of metaphysics and natural magic. Since Della Porta’s interest lies in the immediate transformation of individual bod- ies, Bacon considers his approach an inferior kind of science, what he called physics mechanics. There are several changes Bacon made to Della Porta’s experimental reports. They can be grouped by addition of causal explanations, generalizations, selection reordering of instances under different headings. Through all these transformations, Bacon acquires a more profound knowledge of nature and its inner activities and takes Della Porta’s experimental reports to the “superior” science of metaphysics and natural magic. 1. Introduction The study of vegetables represents one of the main topics in Bacon’s Sylva sylvarum. Not only in quantitative terms, because plants occupy about a third of the entire book, but the centuries on plants are among the most structured, and this reveals Bacon’s particular interest for the topic. The key to understanding Bacon’s interest can be found in both his Sylva Research for this article has been supported from the CNCS Project From Natural History to Science. The Emergence of Experimental Philosophy, PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0719. Some para- graphs of this paper correspond to parts of my Ph.D. dissertation From Natural History to Natural Magic: Francis Bacon’s Sylva sylvarum (Radboud University Nijmegen and University of Bucharest 2013). I would like to thank Christoph Lüthy and Dana Jalobeanu for their useful comments on this study when it was a dissertation chapter, and the two reviewers for helping me improve my argument. I am also grateful to Becci Hutchins, Ed Slowik, and Daniel Collette for their English corrections on the various versions of this paper. Perspectives on Science 2017, vol. 25, no. 1 ©2017 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology doi:10.1162/POSC_a_00233 1 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/POSC_a_00233 by guest on 24 September 2021 2 Bacon and Della Porta sylvarum and the Historia vitae et mortis, where Bacon explains how the results of studying certain processes in plants can be later transferred and applied to animals and humans. In the context of his discussion of nourishing foods and drinks, Bacon addresses the question of how nour- ishment gets assimilated in the body. One of the ways in which the pro- cess of assimilation is slowed down is when parts of a body can no longer draw in the nourishment rapidly and vigorously. This leads to decay. Paraphrasing Aristotle, Bacon explains why plants live longer than ani- mals: because they continuously grow new leaves and branches. The new branches have more force to draw nourishment, which, in passing, also nourishes the older parts of the plant, prolonging their life. Bacon’s aim when discussing plants is to transfer his observations to the animal realm. But given that it is impossible for animals to grow anything anal- ogous to new branches, they need to rely on a different method, namely the restoration of what is easily repaired and through this, the revitaliza- tion of what is not: Transfer therefore this observation to the helping of nourishment in living creatures: the noblest and principal use whereof is, for the prolongation of life; restoration of some degree of youth; and inteneration of the parts; for certain it is, that there are in living creatures parts that nourish and repair easily, and parts that nourish and repair hardly; and you must refresh and renew those that are easy to nourish, that the other may be refreshed and (as it were) drink in nourishment in the passage. (The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, II, p. 364. Hereafter SEH) This kind of transfer of knowledge from one class of beings to another is very commonly found in Bacon’s natural historical work. For example, the Historia vitae et mortis starts by studying inanimate bodies and then trans- fers that knowledge to the human body (The Oxford Francis Bacon XII, p. 151. Hereafter OFB.). In the same way, processes such as growth and the aforementioned alimentation and assimilation are investigated in plants throughout Sylva and the Historia vitae et mortis with the aim of transferring them to animals, and most importantly to humans in order to cure diseases, preserve health, and prolong life. To give another example, concocted aliments lead, according to Bacon, to the preservation of health and the prolongation of life. Bacon’s argument in favor of this theory is a clear analogy between grafting, the process though which one plant nour- ishes on the already concocted sap of the other plant (and thus the graft does not spend time in processing the nourishment and only assimilates it), and nourishing on soups and broths, which can be immediately assimilated, Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/POSC_a_00233 by guest on 24 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 3 because they are already cooked.1 What is more important, a big part of the centuries on plants from Sylva studies the processes and substances which can produce this attraction of nourishment, and the process of grafting and assimilation, with experiments and recipes to be found also in the Historia vitae et mortis or with references to the recipes found in other parts in Sylva. This possibility of transferring knowledge from one domain of inves- tigation to another is a significant feature of Bacon’s natural philosophy and it characterizes his conception of natural magic, the superior operative science. Because it relies on the knowledge of nature based on matter theory (what Bacon calls “metaphysics,” the knowledge of forms), natural magic can modify objects through techniques that have not been discovered by investigating the objects themselves. This characteristic is grounded on Bacon’s presupposition that the basic appetites and motions of matter are identical for all composed bodies.2 In compiling his experiments with plants for Sylva, Bacon borrowed heavily from Della Porta’s Magia naturalis and incorporated the latter’s ex- perimental reports into his own system of investigating nature. The aim of this paper is to show how Bacon builds a science of natural magic on the borrowings from Della Porta, whose experiments remain, according to Bacon’s own definitions, at the level of mechanics, the inferior operative science by comparison with magic. I claim that unlike Della Porta, who was concerned with the transformation of individual plants and the production of “curiosities,” Bacon’saimwasthediscoveryofthesecret processes of matter, with the final goal of using this information to prolong human life.3 The way in which Bacon builds a science of magic using 1. The recipes are given in the first century, and then, when analyzing nourishment in plants, Bacon concludes that “[i]t proveth also that our former opinion; that drink incor- porate with flesh or roots (as in capon-beer, &c.) will nourish more easily than meat and drink taken severally” (SEH II, pp. 478–79). Throughout the Historia vitae et mortis sub- stances are taken in soups and broth for a better assimilation and similar recipes can be found in the text, without any explanation of their efficacy. 2. For Bacon, matter was created at once as he explains in the fable of Cupid (see De sapientia veterum, SEH VI, pp. 654–57, 729–30, and De principiis atque originibus, OFB VI, pp. 197–267). This means that the basic appetites and the simple motions are common for all portions of matter. Bacon argues against the Aristotelian distinction between celestial and sublunary matter in both the Descriptio globi intellectualis (see OFB VI, p. 113 and pp. 159–61) and the Novum organum (OFB XI, 121). Diversity rises as a result of different combinations of motions. It is true that some structures of matter are more complex than others: compared to plants, animals have also senses, and compared with them, humans have reason. However, when decomposing these bodies, the basic motions and appetites are identical. 3. I do not claim that Bacon was not interested at all in the production of effects. More than once in Sylva he mentions the possible profit of the experiments he reports. However, I Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/POSC_a_00233 by guest on 24 September 2021 4 Bacon and Della Porta Della Porta’s reports can only be understood through a detailed analysis of his changes to the Italian’s experimental reports. The selection of instances, specific changes to borrowed case descriptions (generalizations, additions of causal explanations, and methodological criticism), and the rearrangement of the sections constitute arguments in favor of this thesis. In addition to this comparison, which reveals the characteristics of Bacon’s method of dealing with sources, this paper will also provide a number of instances of previously unidentified borrowings from the Magia naturalis. Bacon’s relation with the tradition of Renaissance magic has been de- bated. Paolo Rossi considers that magic and alchemy had “little or no influence on Bacon” (Rossi 1987, p. 21) and that his science was a reaction to Renaissance magic (Rossi 1987, p. 11). This vision has been challenged by Sophie Weeks, who claimed that Bacon’s magic was not a reaction against, but rather a purification from impostures and fantasies (Weeks 2007, p. 22). Moreover, discussing Bacon’s science of magic, Weeks has also claimed that Sylva is an application of it, but without further devel- oping the topic.
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