218 PREPARATION FOR A NATURAL 



duction. The latter is its present application; its present 

 one, I observe, for it was never before so applied. For 

 neither Aristotle, nor Theophrastus, nor Dioscorides, nor 

 Pliny, nor much less the moderns, ever proposed this as 

 the object of natural history. And the principal point to 

 be attended to is this, that those who shall henceforth take 

 charge of natural history, do perpetually reflect, and im 

 press upon their minds, that they ought not to be subser 

 vient to the pleasure or even benefit which may, at this 

 present time, be derived from their narrative, but that they 

 must collect and prepare such and so varied a supply of 

 things, as may be sufficient for the forming of genuine 

 axioms. If they thus reflect, they will themselves lay 

 down their own method for such a history, for the end 

 governs the means. 



in. But by as much as this is a matter requiring great 

 pains and labour, by so much the less should it be unneces 

 sarily burthened. There are three points then upon which 

 men should be warned to employ but scanty labour, in as 

 much as they infinitely increase the bulk of the work, and 

 add but little or nothing to its value. 



First, then, let them dismiss antiquity and quotations, or 

 the suffrages of authors, all disputes, controversies, and dis 

 cordant opinions, and, lastly, all philological disquisitions. 

 Let no author be quoted except on doubtful points, nor 

 controversies entered into except on matter of great im 

 portance, and as for the ornaments of language, and com 

 parisons, and the whole treasury of eloquence, and the 

 like puerilities, let them be wholly renounced. Nay, let 

 all which is admitted be propounded briefly and concisely, 

 so as to be nothing less than words. For no one, who is 

 preparing and laying by materials for building houses or 

 ships, or the like, takes the trouble, as they would in shops, 

 of arranging them elegantly and showing them off to ad 

 vantage, but rather attends only to their being strong and 

 good, and to their taking up as little room as possible in his 

 warehouse. Let the like be done here. 



Secondly, there is not much real use in the lavish abun 

 dance of descriptions, painted representations of species, and 

 collections of their varieties with which natural history is 

 adorned. These trifling varieties are the mere sport and 

 wantonness of nature, and approximate to merely individual 

 characteristics, affording a pleasant digression, but a mean 

 and superfluous sort of information as regards science. 



Thirdly, we must reject all superstitious narratives (I do 



