430 



PREFACE. 



In this, however, we do not wish to be considered as 

 demanding for our own dogma the authority which we have 

 withheld from those of the ancients. We would rather 

 indeed testify and proclaim, that we are far from wishing 

 to be ourselves peremptorily bound by what we are about 

 to bring forward, of whatever character it may be, to the 

 maintenance of the whole of our secondary and inductive 

 philosophy. The result of our meditations we have deter 

 mined to offer loosely, and unconfined by the circumscrip 

 tion of method ; deeming this a form both better adapted 

 to sciences newly springing up as from an old stock, and 

 more suitable to a writer whose present object it is not to 

 constitute an art from combined, but to institute a free in 

 vestigation of individual existences. 



F. W. 



END OF THE 1NSTAURATIO. 



