PREFACE 



COGITATIONES DE SCIENTIA HUMANA. 



THE value of this collection would be much increas 

 ed if the dates of the several pieces could be fixed, or 

 even the order of succession. I fear however that it 

 is impossible to do this with any certainty. I have 

 arranged them in the order in which it seems to me 

 most probable that they were written, but the evidence 

 is so scanty and unsatisfactory that I wish every reader 

 to consider it an open question and to judge for him 

 self upon the data which will be laid before him. 



This which I place first, and to which for conven 

 ience of reference I give the title Cogitationes de Sci- 

 enttd Humand, is a fragment, or rather three separate 

 fragments, that have not been printed before. They are 

 copied from a manuscript which came to the British 

 Museum among the papers of Dr. Birch, who appears 

 to have received it from the executors of Mr. John 

 Locker. Locker was a friend of Robert Stephens, the 

 Historiographer Royal ; was employed by him to see 

 through the press his second collection of Bacon s let 

 ters, published in 1734 ; was afterwards engaged in pre 

 paring an edition of all Bacon s works, but died before 

 it was completed ; whereupon the task, together with 



