fied. For it would be futile, and perhaps pernicious, merely to overturn and explode errors in philosophy, if from the incorrigible grain of the mind a new off-shoot of errors, perhaps even degenerated from their predecessors, should sprout; and not till all hope is precluded, of perfecting philosophy, or enlarging its empire by the exercise of ordinary reason, and by the helps and aids of the received logic, ought we to abandon and discard them; lest haply we do not thereby banish, but only change our errors. Wherefore that part of the book which we term the destroying, consists of a threefold argument of redargution or exposure; redargution of the philosophies; redargution of the demonstrations; and redargution of human reason in its natural course.

And it does not escape us, that without so immense a revolution, no small accretion to science might result from our labours, and celebrity be attainable by a smoother path. Nevertheless, being uncertain when the same views may enter the mind of any other man, we have determined to make a full and free profession of our creed.

of contemplative wisdom, as from a far diviner state-we shall show and establish, as we trust, forever, (not without putting to the blush the whole of that school which hesitates not to concede divine honours to fantastic reveries, utterly bereft of solidity,) the difference that prevails between the ideas of the divine and the idols of the human mind. Those also to whom, absorbed in the love of meditation, our frequent mention of works sounds harsh, uncouth, and mechanical, shall be instructed how much they war against the attainment of their own object of desire, since exact clearness of contemplation, and the invention of works, its under platform, depend upon and are brought to perfection by the same means. If any one should still hold out, conceiving of this absolute regeneration of science from its elements, as a thing interminable, vast, and infinite, we shall demonstrate that, on the contrary, it ought to be regarded as a true boundary and a circumscribing line, marking off the region of error and waste land; and we shall make it manifest, that a just and full inquisition of particulars, without attempting to embrace individuals, gradations, and vermiculate differences, (which is enough for the purposes of science;) and then notions and truths, raised from and upon the former, in just method, form something infinitely more defined, tangible, and intelligible, sure of itself, and clear both in what hath been done, and what remains to be accomplished, than floating systems and abstract subtleties, of which there is indeed no end, but a ceaseless gyration, whirl, and chaos. And though some sober censor, (as he may think himself,) applying to this subject that diffidence of consequences which becomes civil prudence, should consider what we now say to be like men's vain aspirations-an indulgence only of wild hopeand that in truth nothing else will follow from this remodelled state of philosophy, than that new doctrines, perhaps, are substituted, but the resources of mankind not at all augmented—such a one we shall, as we conceive, induce to admit, that we are doing any thing but founding a system or a sect, that our institution differs wholly and generically from all that have hitherto been attempted in philosophy and the sciences-and First, then, if any one think that the secrets of that there is the surest promise of a harvest of nature remain shut up, as it were, with the seal works, if men will only not forestal the same by of God, and by some divine mandate interdicted hastening to cut the first worthless vegetation of to human wisdom, we shall address ourselves to muscus and weeds, and grasping with a childish remove this weak and jealous notion, and, relying passion and vain precipitation at the first pledges on simple truth, shall bring the inquiry to this of works. And in handling the points we have issue, not only to silence the howl of superstition, enumerated, enough, we think, shall have been but to draw religion herself to our side. Again, done to guard against that species of prejudice if the idea should occur to any one, that great and which is inspired by false and illiberal notions of scrupulous delay in experiments, and the tossing the thing propounded; and therewithal we judge about, so to speak, on a sea of matter and particu- that our second part, which we call the preparalar facts, which we impose on men, must needs tory, is complete ;-after every adverse gust from plunge the mind into a very Tartarus of confusion, religion, from theoretical speculation, and from and cast it down from the serenity and coolness ivil wisdom, with its handmaids, distrust, phleg

After having levelled the area of the mind, it follows in order, that we must place the mind in an advantageous position, and, as it were, in a kindly exposure to the rays of what we propound. For since, in a matter of novelty, not merely the violent preoccupation of old opinion, but also a false preconception or conjectural picture of that which is offered, disposes to prejudice, we must also apply a remedy to this disorder, and the mind must not only be disencumbered but prepared. That preparation is nothing more than to have true opinions of that which we allege imparted provisionally only, as it were, and by. way of loan, previous to a thorough knowledge of the thing itself. Now, this mainly depends on shutting out, and holding in abeyance those foul and malign suspicions, which, we may easily augur, will, from the prejudices now in vogue, as from the contagion of an epidemic fanatical gloom, seize upon men's minds; wherefore it behoves us to see, as Lucretius hath it,

"Ne qua

Occurrat facies inimica atque omnia turbet."

matic coldness, and the like, shall have sunk and died away.

Yet to form a preparation in all respects perfect, it seems still to be wanting, that we remove the stagnation of mind, which is generated by the utter novelty of our plan. This unfriendly torpor is only dispelled by the explanation of its causes; for it is the knowledge of its causes alone that solves the prodigy, and puts an end to the stupor of astonishment. Wherefore we shall here note all those perverse and troublesome obstacles by which true science hath been checked and retarded, so that it is not at all astonishing that men should have been so long involved, and toiled on, in the meshes of error.

And in this part of the subject one thing will felicitously come in, as a solid reason for hope, namely, that although the true interpretation of nature, wherein we toil, be justly held most difficult, yet by far the greatest part of that difficulty | depends upon what lies within our own power and admits of correction, not on things placed beyond our sphere of capacity; I mean in the mind, not in things, or in the senses.

Now, if any one deem that scrupulous care with which we strive to prepare men's minds is uncalled for-that it is of the nature of parade, and got up for purposes of display, and should therefore desire to see denuded of all circumlocution and the scaffolding of preliminaries, a simple statement; assuredly such an insinuation, were it founded in truth, would come well recommended to us. Would that it were as easy for us to conquer difficulties and obstructions, as to cast away idle pomp and false elaboration. But this we would have men believe, that it is not within due exploration of the route, that we pursue our path in such a desert, especially having in hand such a theme, as it were monstrous to lose by incompetent handling, and to leave exposed, as by an unnatural mother. Wherefore, duly meditating and contemplating the state both of nature and of mind, we find the avenues to men's understandings harder of access than to things themselves, and the labour of communicating not much lighter than of excogitating; and, therefore, which is almost a new feature in the intellectual world, we obey the humour of the time, and play the nurse, both with our own thoughts and those of others. For every hollow idol is dethroned by skill, insinuation, and regular approaches; whereas by violence, by opposition, and by irregular and abrupt attacks, it is exasperated into energy. Nor does this take place only because men, enslaved by admiration of certain authors, or bloated with self-sufficiency, or reluctant from some habit, will not exert their candour. Even were any one willing in the utmost degree to exact of himself impartiality as a duty, and to forswear, as it were, every prejudice, it does not follow that we are to repose unlimited confidence in the award of a mind VOL. II.-70

| so disposed. For no man by mere energy of will commands his intellect, the spirits of the philosophers (as it is written of the prophets) are not subject to the philosophers. Wherefore it is not the honesty, candour, or openness to conviction of other men, which we are to confide in for support, but our own care, address, and conciliation.

In which respect no small difficulty is further created to us from our own character, having laid it down as an inviolable law evermore to hold fast our integrity and ingenuousness, and not to seek an entrance for truth through hollow ways, but so to regulate our compliance as by no subtle deception, by no imposture or aught that resembles imposture, but only by the light of order and the skilful grafting of new shoots upon the healthier part of the old, to hope for the attainment of our desires. Wherefore we return to this assertion, that the labour consumed by us in paving the way, so far from being superfluous, is truly too little for difficulties so considerable.

Leaving, therefore, the preparatory part, we now come to the informing, and shall exhibit a simple and bare outline of that art which we intend.

The things which make for the perfecting of the intellect in the interpretation of nature, may be divided into three ministrations to the same, ministration to sense, ministration to memory, and ministration to reason. In ministration to the senses we shall make exposition of three things, first, how a good notion is collected and elicited, and how the testimony of sense, which is ever according to the analogy of man, may be reduced and rectified to the analogy of the universe. For we do not attach much weight to the immediate perceptions of sense, except only in so far as it manifests motion or change in its objects. Secondly, we shall show how those things which baffle the sense, either by intangibility of the entire substance, or by minuteness of parts, or by remoteness of place, or by slowness or celerity of motion, or by habitual familiarity of the object, or otherwise, may be brought under the jurisdiction of sense, and placed at its bar; and, furthermore, in cases where they cannot be produced, what is then to be done; and how such deficiency may be filled up by skilful noting of gradations, or by informations as to inanimate bodies derived from the analogy of corresponding sentient ones, or by other modes and substitutions. In the last place, we shall speak of a Natural History, and the method of performing experiments; what that Natural History is, which will serve as a foundation for philosophy; and again what method of experimenting, in the want of such natural history, must be resorted to; wherein we shall also interweave some observations as to calling forth and arresting the attention. For there are many things both in natural history and in experiments, present to knowledge, absent to use,

3 A

because the apprehensive faculty hath been feebly often the inquisition is to be repeated. For we drawn forth to note them.

Ministration to the senses is comprehended in three particulars. The senses are to be furnished with materials, with helps where they fail, and helps where they err. To the materials of the senses are appropriated history and experiments, to their short-comings, fit substitutions, to their declination, rules of correction.

intend the first series of charts or results to form, as it were, moveable axes, and to constitute only the verifying part of the inquisition; for we have no hope of the mind's ever pursuing and securing its rightful dominion over nature, unless by repeated action. The ministration, therefore, to memory consists, as we have said in three doctrines, of the topics of discovery, of the reduction into tables, and of the method of fully establishing the inquiry.

Ministration to reason remains, to which the two former parts are only ancillary. For by them there is no building up of axioms, but only the production of simple notions with an orderly narration of facts, verified, indeed, by the first ministration, and so exhibited by the second, as

Ministration to memory hath this for its function; out of the mass of particular facts, and the accumulation of facts forming natural history general, it extracts a history particular, and arranges it in such order, that the judgment can forthwith act, and do its office. For it befits us prudently to calculate the powers of the mind, and not to hope that they can expatiate at large over the infinity of nature. For it is manifest to be, so to speak, placed at our disposal. Now, that the memory is defective and incompetent when it attempts to embrace the endless variety of things, and, no less, that in the choosing out of such as bear on some defined field of inquiry, it is unpractised and unprepared. Now, as regards the former malady, the mode of curing it is easy. It is performed by one remedial rule, which is, that no investigation or invention be entertained which is not drawn from a written statement of results. For it were the same for one confident in the strength of memory to try to grasp the whole interpretation of nature on a given subject, as to endeavour to seize and perform by rote the problems of astronomy. Besides, it is sufficiently apparent how small is the province we allot to mere memory of discourse of reason, seeing we do not authenticate discovery, even when detailed in writing, save by digested tables. To the latter defect, therefore, we must devote more attention. And, doubtless, after the subject has been measured off and defined for inquiry, and stands clear and unencumbered out of the mass of things, the ministration to memory seems to consist of three operations or offices. First, we shall show what those things are which, in regard to the subject given or propounded, seem, on glancing over its history of facts, the proper points for inquiry, which forms a kind of argument or topic. Secondly, in what order these ought to be marshalled, and digested in regular tables. Nevertheless, we expect not that the true vein of the subject, being of the analogy of the universe, can be discovered at the outset of the inquiry, so that the division might follow from it, but only the apparent one, so as to suggest some sort of partition of the subject. For truth shall sooner emerge from falsehood than from disorder, and reason more easily rectify the division, than penetrate the unsubdued mass. Then, in the third place, we shall show in what method and at what time the inquisition is to be recommenced, and the charts or tables preceding to be brought forward to new charts, and how

that ministration to reason, claims to be most highly approved, which shall best enable reason to perform its office and secure its end. The office of reason is in its nature one, in its end and use double. For the end of man is either to know and contemplate, or to act and execute. Wherefore the design of human knowledge is to know the causes of a given effect or quality in any object of thought. And again, the design of human agency is, upon a given basis of matter, to build or superinduce any effect or quality within the limits of possibility. And these designs, on a close examination and just estimate, are seen to coincide. For that which in contemplation stands for a cause, in operation stands for a mean, or instrument; since we know by causes and operate by means. And, doubtless, if all the means which are required, to what operations soever, were supplied to man's hand at pleasure, there would be no especial use in treating of the two disjunctively. But since man's operation is tied up within much narrower circumscription than his knowledge, because of the innumerable necessities and limitations of the individual, so that for the operative part there is often demanded not so much a wisdom allcomprehensive and free to range over possibility, as a judgment sagacious and expert in selecting from what is immediately before us; it is consistent with this, to consider these things as more happily treated of apart. Wherefore we shall also make like division of the ministration to reason, according as the ministration is to reason active or contemplative.

As respects the contemplative part, to say it in a word, all evidently turns on one point. And that is no other than this, that a true axiom be established, or the same be made conjunctive with other axioms, for this is gaining a portion of the solid of truth, whereas a simple notion isolated, is so to speak but its surface. Now, such axiom is not elicited or formed, save by the legitimate and appropriate forms of induction, which ana

1

lyses and divides experience, and by proper ultimate efficients, or to matter taken generically, limitations and rejections comes to necessary con- (such as are discussed in the disputations of the clusions. Now the popular induction (from schools,) but to proximate efficients and preparawhich the proofs of principles themselves are tions of matter. Lest men should labour in these, attempted) is but a puerile toy, concluding at however, by a vain repetition and refining of random, and perpetually in risk of being exploded experiments, we shall in this part introduce the by contradictory instances: insomuch that the doctrine of discovering latent processes. Now, dialecticians seem never once to have thought of we give the name of latent process to a certain the subject in earnest, turning from it in a sort of series and gradation of changes, formed by the disdain, and hurrying on to other things. Mean- action of an efficient and the motion of parts in time this is manifest, that the conclusions which matter subjected to that action. The varying of are attained by any species of induction are at the inquiry as it respects its subjects is derived once both discovered and attested, and do not from two states of things, either from their eledepend on axioms and middle truths, but stand mentary or compound character, (for there is one on their own weight of evidence, and require no modification of the inquiry adapted to things extrinsic proof. Much more then is it necessary simple, another to things compound, or decomthat those axioms which are raised according to posed, or ambiguous,) or from the copiousness the true form of induction, should be of self-con- or poverty of the natural history which may have tained proof, surer and more solid than what are been collected to advance the inquiry. For when termed principles themselves; and this kind of the history is rich in facts, the progress of the induction is what we have been wont to term the inquisition is prompt; when limited, it is labour formula of interpretation. Therefore it is, that we in shackles, and demands manifold assiduity and desire to be careful and luminous, in exposition, skill. So, then, by handling the points we have above all other topics, of the construction of the now recounted, we shall have, as it seems to us, axiom and the formula of interpretation. There sufficiently discussed the varying of the inquiry. remain, however, subservient to this end, three There remains the contracting of the inquiry, things of paramount importance, without explica- so as not only to demonstrate and make patent a tion of which, the rule of inquisition, though po- | way in places pathless before, but a short cut in tent in the effect, may be regarded as operose in that way, and as it were a straight line of prothe application. These are the continuing, vary-gression, which shall go direct through circuitous ing, and contracting of the inquiry, so that nothing may be left in the art either half done, or inconsistent, or too much lengthened out for the shortness of man's life. We shall therefore show in the first place the use of axioms (supposing them discovered by the formula,) for inquiring into and raising others higher and more general, so that by a succession of firm and unbroken steps in the ladder of ascent, we may arrive at the unity of nature. In this part, however, we shall add the mode of examining and attesting these higher axioms by the experimental results first obtained, lest we again fall down to conjectures, probabilities, and idol systems. And this is the method which we term the continuing of the inquiry.

The varying of the inquisition accommodates itself to the different nature, either of the causes to ascertain which the inquiry is set on foot, or of the things or subjects about which the inquiry is occupied. Therefore, discarding final causes, which have hitherto utterly vitiated natural philosophy, we shall commence with an inquiry, on the plan of varying and adaptation, into forms, a branch which has hitherto been abandoned as hopeless, and not unreasonably. For no one can be so privileged either in his powers of mind or in his good fortune, as to detect the form of any thing by means of presumptive conjectures and scholastic logic. Then follow the divers sorts of matter and of efficients. Now, when we use the terms matter and efficients, we do not point to

and perplexed routes. Now this (like every other kind of abridging) consists mainly in the selection of things. And we shall find that there are in things two prerogatives, so to speak, of sovereign efficacy in abridging investigation, the prerogative of the instance, and the prerogative of that which is inquired into. Wherefore, we shall point out in the first place what those instances or experiments are, which are privileged above the rest to give forth light, so that a few of them afford as much weight as a multitude of others. For this both saves accumulation of the history and the toil of beating about indefinitely. We shall, then, expound what are the subjects of inquisition, from which the investigation ought to borrow its prelibation of omens, as those which being first disposed of, carry, as it were, a torch before their successors, either by reason of their own consummate certainty, or generic quality, or from their being indispensable to mechanical trials. And here we close the ministration to reason regarded in its character of contemplative.

The doctrine of the active part of reason and its ministration, we shall comprehend in three directions, first, premising two admonitions to open an entrance into the minds of men. The first of these is, that in the inquiry, proceeding according to the formula laid down, the active part of reason should have a perpetual intercommunion with the contemplative. For the nature of things constrains that the propositions and

axioms inferred and trained down to particular in upon our mind, that what is now done, from and practical uses, by process of reasoning, the supreme importance of the good it contains to should yield only a sort of guesses, exceedingly man, is manifestly of God. And in His workobscure and imperfect. Whereas an axiom drawn ings, every the most insignificant germ of the from particulars to new and corresponding ones, future is pregnant with results. leads on investigation in a broad and indestructible path. The other premonition is this, that we remember that, in the active branch of the inquiry, the business is to be accomplished by means of the ladder of descent, the use of which we waived in the contemplative. For every operation is occupied about individual experiments whose place is at the bottom of all. We must, therefore, descend the steps that lie between general truths and these. Nor, again, is it practicable to get at these by means of axioms taken unconnectedly; for every practical operation, and the mode of performing it, is at once suggested and effected by applying a combination of isolated axioms. With these preliminaries, then, we come to our threefold exposition of the doctrine of active interpretation. The first part propounds a defined and appropriate method of inquiry, in which not the cause or governing axiom, but the effecting of any operation is the object in view, and is submitted to examination. The second shows the way of making general tables with a special view to practice, in which may be much more easily and readily found all sorts of suggestions and indications of works. The third subjoins a mode of ascertaining and striking out new practical uses, an incomplete mode, no doubt, and yet not without utility, which travels from one experiment to another, without deducing of axioms. For, as from axiom to axiom, so from experiment to experiment, there is presented and opened up a passage to discovery, narrow indeed and slippery, yet not to be wholly passed over in silence. And here we conclude the ministration to practice, being the last in the order of distribution. This, then, is a plain and succinct abstract of the second book.

These things being unfolded, we trust to have well constructed and furnished withal, the marriage chamber of mind and the universe, the divine goodness not disdaining to be bridemaid. Let it then be the votive part of the nuptial hymn, that from their union may rise and descend a progeny of helps to man's life, a line, so to speak, of heroes to conquer and command the wants and the miseries of humanity.

At the conclusion, we shall add some remarks on the combination and the succession of scientific efforts. For then, and not till then, shall men know their own strength, not when multitudes devote themselves as now to the same tasks, but when some shall appropriate what is neglected by the rest. Nor, truly, have we abandoned hope of aftertimes, that there shall rise up men to advance to a nobler state a work commencing from such slender beginnings. For it is borne

Now, in the redargution of the received philo sophies which we intend, we scarcely know whither at first to turn ourselves, since the avenue to confutation of the same, which was to others open, is to us inhibited. And, besides, so many and so vast are the troops of error which present themselves, that we must overthrow and dislodge them, not in close detail but in mass: and if we would draw near unto them, and try conclusions, hand to hand, with each of them individually, it were in vain: the rule of all reasoning being set aside, differing as we do from them in our principles, and repudiating as we do the very forms and authority of their proofs and demonstrations. And if (which seems to be the only thing left for us to do) we attempted to infer and derive from experience the truths we maintain, we are only turning back to the starting point. And, forgetting what we have discoursed of the preparing of men's minds, we are found going directly the opposite way: and falling all at once and prematurely on nature; to which we have pronounced it absolutely necessary that we open up and pave a way, because of the obdurate prejudices and impediments of the minds of men. Nevertheless, we shall not be wanting to ourselves, but shall try to confront them, and prove our strength, in manner accommodated to our design, both by producing certain tokens from which an estimate may be formed of these philosophies, and meanwhile noting among the philosophies themselves, so as to shake their authority, certain prodigies of perversion, and laughingstocks to intelligence, which they furnish.

Yet it escapes us not that the mass of such errors is too much consolidated to be at once overthrown; especially as among learned men, it is no unusual or unheard-of arrogance, wilfully to reject opinions which they cannot shake. Nor shall we offer aught too light or low for the grandeur of the interest which is at stake, nor in this sort of redargution attempt to make converts to our creed, hoping only meantime to conciliate patience and candour, and that only in minds of a more commanding and decisive order. For no one can betake himself to us, fresh from the habitual and unceasing companionship of such errors, with such openness and greatness of mind, as not to retain some bias to his impressions and opinions in favour of inveterate and established systems. You cannot inscribe fresh characters on the writing-tablet without expunging the former ones; but, in the mind, you will scarcely obliterate the first drawn characters, save by inscribing others.

This bias, as we think, ought to be counteracted,