, IV, 461: "Franciscus Glisson, qui universis elementis corporum vim motricem tribuit, etiam nostram vim Irritabilitatem vocavit, non quod absque irritatione nunquam adpareat, sed quod ab irritatione certa succedat. Eam tamen vim partim a perceptione quadam naturali pendere posuit vir. Cl. et partim a sensu externo, aque stimulo sanguinis in corde docuit cieri. Eam etiam cum omnibus corporis humani partibus communem fecit, ut ipsa ossa succosque demum nostros faceret irritabiles. Manifeste adeo omne contractionis mortuae genus cum nostra vi conjunxit. Caeterum a motu nervoso recte distinxit, qui ab imaginatione nascitur." 3 Haller 1776-1777a, III, 663a: "Cette . . . force, qu'il vaudroit mieux appeller force innée, mais qu'on s'est accoutuméà appeller irritabilité."

Bacon belonged to a cultural milieu that, between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, proved to be especially receptive to inºuences coming from such continental authors as Machiavelli, Bodin, Duplessis-Mornay, Hotman, and, through Lipsius, a Tacitean Stoicism and Stoic TacitismDuring the Renaissance, Tacitus' works were interpreted and applied in a wide variety of ways. Tacitus became a source of inspiration for thinking about revolutions, wars, conspiracies, subtle transitions from freedom to despotism (and vice versa), prudent action in the administration of the State, cautious behavior at court, the exercise of political wisdom, and legal expertise in Roman law. The model of Tacitean history could be used to foster republican liberty (Niccolò Machiavelli), to promote political realism (Giovanni Botero), to preserve a sphere of intellectual freedom in situations dominated by tyrannical rule (Justus Lipsius), and to claim a divine origin for monarchical regimes (King James I). He could show people how to live safely under tyranny and tyrants and how to secure their power in situations of political instability (Francesco Guicciardini). Huguenot political thinkers developed theories about the right to resist monarchical power by relying on interpretations of Tacitus which were in-I would like to thank Jill Kraye and James A. T. Lancaster for their comments on an earlier version of this article and for improving its English.

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We invite systematic consideration of the metaphors of cycles and circulation as a long-term theme in the history of the life and environmental sciences and medicine. Ubiquitous in ancient religious and philosophical traditions, especially in representing the seasons and the motions of celestial bodies, circles once symbolized perfection. Over the centuries cyclic images in western medicine, natural philosophy, natural history and eventually biology gained independence from cosmology and theology and came to depend less on strictly circular forms. As potent ‘canonical icons’, cycles also interacted with representations of linear and irreversible change, including arrows, arcs, scales, series and trees, as in theories of the Earth and of evolution. In modern times life cycles and reproductive cycles have often been held to characterize life, in some cases especially female life, while human efforts selectively to foster and disrupt these cycles have harnessed their productivity in medicine and agriculture. But strong cyclic metaphors have continued to link physiology and climatology, medicine and economics, and biology and manufacturing, notably through the relations between land, food and population. From the grand nineteenth-century transformations of matter to systems ecology, the circulation of molecules through organic and inorganic compartments has posed the problem of maintaining identity in the face of flux and highlights the seductive ability of cyclic schemes to imply closure where no original state was in fact restored. More concerted attention to cycles and circulation will enrich analyses of the power of metaphors to naturalize understandings of life and their shaping by practical interests and political imaginations.