PREFACE. 



common causes. Even if some few, who neither dogmatise 

 nor submit to dogmatism, have been so spirited as to re 

 quest others to join them in investigation, yet have such, 

 though honest in their zeal, been weak in their efforts. 

 For they seem to have followed only probable reasoning, 

 and are hurried in a continued whirl of arguments, till by 

 an indiscriminate license of inquiry, they have enervated 

 the strictness of investigation. But not one has there been 

 found of a disposition to dwell sufficiently on things them 

 selves and experience. For some again, who have com 

 mitted themselves to the waves of experience, and become 

 almost mechanics, yet in their very experience employ an 

 unsteady investigation, and war not with it by fixed rules. 

 Nay, some have only proposed to themselves a few paltry 

 tasks, and think it a great thing if they can work out one 

 single discovery, a plan no less beggarly than unskilful. 

 For no one examines thoroughly or successfully the nature 

 of any thing in the thing itself, but after a laborious variety 

 of experiments, instead of pausing there, they set out upon 

 some further inquiry. And we must by no means omit 

 observing, that all the industry displayed in experiment 

 has, from the very first, caught with a too hasty and intem 

 perate zeal at some determined effect ; has sought (I say) 

 productive rather than enlightening experiments, and has 

 not imitated the divine method, which on the first day 

 created light alone, and assigned it one whole day, pro 

 ducing no material works thereon, but descending to their 

 creation on the following days. Those who have attributed 

 the preeminence to logic, and have thought that it afforded 

 the safest support to learning, have seen very correctly and 

 properly that man s understanding, when left to itself, is 

 deservedly to be suspected. Yet the remedy is even weaker 

 than the disease; nay, it is not itself free from disease. 

 For the common system of logic, although most properly 

 applied to civil matters, and such arts as lie in discussion 

 arid opinion, is far from reaching the subtilty of nature, 

 and, by catching at that which it cannot grasp, has done 

 more to confirm, and, as it were, fasten errors upon us, than 

 to open the way to truth. 



To sum up therefore our observations, neither reliance 

 upon others, nor their own industry, appear hitherto to 

 have set forth learning to mankind in her best light, espe 

 cially as there is little aid in such demonstrations and ex 

 periments as have yet reached us. For the fabric of this 

 universe is like a labyrinth to the contemplative mind, 



