86 NOVUM ORGAN UM. 



of the divine mind. The former are mere arbitrary ab 

 stractions ; the latter the true marks of the Creator on his 

 creatures, as they are imprinted on, and defined in matter, 

 by true and exquisite touches. Truth, therefore, and utility 

 are here perfectly identical, and the effects are of more value 

 as pledges of truth than from the benefit they confer on 

 men. 



125. Others may object that we are only doing that 

 which has already been done, and that the ancients followed 

 the same course as ourselves. They may imagine, there 

 fore, that, after all this stir and exertion, we shall at last 

 arrive at some of those systems that prevailed among the 

 ancients : for that they too, when commencing their medi 

 tations, laid up a great store of instances and particulars, 

 and digested them under topics and titles in their common 

 place-books, and so worked out their systems and arts, and 

 then decided upon what they discovered, and related now 

 and then some examples to confirm and throw light upon 

 their doctrine ; but thought it superfluous and troublesome 

 to publish their notes, minutes, and common-places, and 

 therefore followed the example of builders who remove the 

 scaffolding and ladders when the building is finished. 

 Nor can we indeed believe the case to have been otherwise. 

 But to any one, not entirely forgetful of our previous ob 

 servations, it will be easy to answer this objection or rather 

 scruple. For we allow that the ancients had a particular 

 form of investigation and discovery, and their writings 

 show it. But it was of such a nature, that they immedi 

 ately flew from a few instances and particulars (after add 

 ing some common notions, and a few generally received 

 opinions most in vogue) to the most general conclusions or 

 the principles of the sciences, and then by their interme 

 diate propositions deduced their inferior conclusions, and 

 tried them by the test of the immovable and settled truth 

 of the first, and so constructed their art. Lastly, if some 

 new particulars and instances were brought forward, which 

 contradicted their dogmas, they either with great subtilty 

 reduced them to one system, by distinctions or explanations 

 of their own rules, or got rid of them clumsily as exceptions, 

 labouring most pertinaciously in the mean time to accom 

 modate the causes of such as were not contradictory to 

 their own principles. Their natural history and their ex 

 perience were both far from being what they ought to have 

 been, and their flying off to generalities ruined every thing. 



126. Another objection will be made against us, that we 

 prohibit decisions, and the laying down of certain principles, 



