Preface.

The following fragment was first printed in Stephens's second collection (1734), from a manuscript belonging to Lord Oxford, which is now in the British Museum (Harl. MSS. 6797. fo. 139). As far as it goes, it agrees so nearly with the Cogitata et Visa that either might be taken for a free translation of the other, with a few additions and omissions. But I think the English was written first; probably at the time when the idea first occurred to Bacon of drawing attention to his doctrine by exhibiting a specimen of the process and the result in one or two particular cases. The Cogitata et Visa professes to be merely a preface framed to prepare the way for an example of a legitimate philosophical investigation proceeding regularly by Tables. Such an example, or at least the plan and skeleton of it, will be found further on, ¹ with the title Filum Labyrinthi, sive Inquisitio legitima de Motu; and the title prefixed to this fragment is most easily explained by supposing that a specimen of an Inquisitio legitima was meant to be included in it.