In science, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was English scientist and philosopher noted for being one of the first to state, in circa 1600, that heat is motion. [1] The following is his noted quote on the matter which comes from extracts of the twentieth aphorism of the second book of the 1620 publication New Instruments (Novum Organum): [2]


Bacon was one of the first to define impelling power. [3] In 1620, English scientific philosopher Francis Bacon developed theories on chemical affinity to explain the inherent nature of motion and its causes. Bacon reasoned that ‘dispute and friendship are the spurs to motion in nature, and the keys to her works.’ [4] Bacon defined chemical affinity as such: [5]

“It is certain that all bodies whatsoever, though they have no sense, yet they have perception; for when one body is applied to another, there is a kind of election to embrace that which is agreeable, and to exclude or expel that which is ingrate; and whether the body be alterant or altered, evermore perception precedeth operation; for else all bodies would be like one to another.”

This logic, naturally, evolved into a conception of elective attraction or elective affinity, defined as ‘a favorable inclination to one more than to another’ or a process in which ‘a substance tends to combine with certain substances in preference to others.’ [6]

Bacon is #30 (IQ=180) of the Cox 300 IQ greatest geniuses who lived between 1450 and 1850 and is #84 of the Gottlieb 1000 most influential people of the second millennium.

References
1. Heilbronner, Edgar and Miller, Foil A. (2004). A Philatelic Ramble Through Chemistry (pg. 116). Helvetica Chemica Acta.
2. (a) Bacon, Francis. (date). “extracts of the twentieth aphorism of the second book of Novum Organum”; In: Tyndall, John. (1875). Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion (Appendix to Chapter II, pgs. 50-51). D. Appleton and Co.
(b) Novum Organum (New Instruments) – Wikipedia.
3. Bacon, Francis. (1825). The Works of Francis Bacon (pg. 501). W. Pickering.
4. Bacon, F. (1838). Works, vol. 2. 1, p. 559. London: Ball.
5. Levere, T. (1993). Affinity and Matter – Elements of Chemical Philosophy [1800-1865]. New York: Taylor & Francis.
5. (a) Elective attraction (chemistry); Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2006.
(b) Elective (elective affinity); Merriam Webster, Incorporated, 2000.

External links
● Francis Bacon – Wikipedia.