96 NOVUM OROANUM 



as we have often observed, only produced light on the first 

 day, and assigned that whole day to its creation, without 

 adding any material work. 



If any one, then, imagine such matters to be of no use, 

 he might equally suppose light to be of no use, because it 

 is neither solid nor material. For, in fact, the knowledge 

 of simple natures, when sufficiently investigated and de 

 fined, resembles light, which, though of no great use in 

 itself, affords access to the general mysteries of effects, and 

 with a peculiar power comprehends and draws with it whole 

 bands and troops of effects, and the sources of the most val 

 uable axioms. So also the elements of letters have of them 

 selves separately no meaning, and are of no use, yet are they, 

 as it were, the original matter in the composition and prepa 

 ration of speech. The seeds of substances, whose effect is 

 powerful, are of no use except in their growth, and the scat 

 tered rays of light itself avail not unless collected. 



But if speculative subtilties give offence, what must we 

 say of the scholastic philosophers who indulged in them to 

 such excess? And those subtilties were wasted on words, 

 or, at least, common notions (which is the same thing), not 

 on things or nature, and alike unproductive of benefit in 

 their origin and their consequences: in no way resembling 

 ours, which are at present useless, but in their consequences 

 of infinite benefit. Let men be assured that all subtile dis 

 putes and discursive efforts of the mind are late and prepos 

 terous, when they are introduced subsequently to the dis 

 covery of axioms, and that their true, or, at any rate, chief 

 opportunity is, when experiment is to be weighed and axioms 

 to be derived from it. They otherwise catch and grasp at 

 nature, but never seize or detain her: and we may well 

 apply to nature that which has been said of opportunity 



