 We see then that Bacon understands universal nature as supervening on a world of distinct individual natures such that corporeal action is contiguous and that a vacuum is excluded. The “particular nature” is the directing power of the species with its individuals, and is divisible into the directive power of the species and of the individual. The example he gives is from embryology: there is the directing power of the species intending the production of the human in general; it intends the production of the individual accidentally. And there is the directing power of the individual, which aims at the determinate individual human as such and mankind in general. As he puts it, “the universal is prior to the particular in [both] the work and execution of nature, but is posterior in intent” ([OHI,II], 93 = TTUM, 87). He then states the ontological priority of the individual over universals as follows: