Again, the obscurity of the text was to be in some measure removed by
the annotations of Stella; not however wholly, for Bacon in the
epitome of the eighteenth chapter commends the manner of publishing
knowledge "whereby it shall not be to the capacity nor taste of all,
but shall as it were single and adopt his reader." Stella was
therefore to throw a kind of starlight on the subject, enough to
prevent the student's losing his way, but not much more.

However this may be, the tract is undoubtedly obscure, partly from
the style in which it is written, and partly from its being only a
fragment. It is at the same time full of interest, inasmuch as it is
the earliest type of the INSTAURATIO...

Note to Preface by James Spedding:

The manuscript from which Robert Stephens printed these fragments was
found among some loose papers placed in his hands by the Earl of
Oxford, and is now in the British Museum; Harl. manuscripts 6462. It
is a thin paper volume of the quarto size, written in the hand of one
of Bacon's servants, with corrections, erasures, and interlineations
in his own.

The chapters of which it consists are both imperfect in themselves
(all but three),--some breaking off abruptly, others being little
more than tables of contents,--and imperfect in their connexion with
each other; so much so as to suggest the idea of a number of separate
papers loosely put together. But it was not so (and the fact is
important) that the volume itself was actually made up. However they
came together, they are here fairly and consecutively copied out.