THE FIRST FRAGMENT. 447 



&quot; as things now are, if an untruth in nature be once 

 on foot, what by reason of the neglect of examination 

 and countenance of antiquity, and what by reason of 

 the use of the opinion in similitudes and ornaments 

 ^f speech, it is never called down,&quot; (I quote a pas 

 sage from the Advancement of Learning with which it 

 is evident that the next sentence in this manuscript 

 closely corresponded,) Bacon has recourse to the 

 illustration so happily developed in the 118th aphorism 

 of the first book of the Novum Organum, comparing 

 the mistakes which will occur in such a natural history 

 as he meditates to the misprints in a book ; if there 

 be but a few, you can correct them by the sense of the 

 passage ; if many, you cannot find what the sense is : 

 so it is, he says, with Natural History and Philosophy. 

 &quot; Nam si paucae vanitates admisceantur, eae a causis 

 ipsis inventis reprobantur ; sin spissaa, ipsam causarum 

 inquisitionem subvertunt. Itaque optimo consilio res 

 geretur, si triplex fidei ordo statuatur. Unus eorum 

 quaa damnantur ; alter eorum quas certo comperiuntur ; 

 tertius eorum quae fidei sunt [dubiaa.]&quot; He concludes 

 his remarks on the Historia Mirabilium by observing 

 that it is useful in two ways both excellent : &quot; the 

 one &quot; (again I quote the Advancement of Learning, for 

 the fragments of the sentence clearly show that it was 

 to the same effect,) &quot; the one to correct the partial 

 ity of axioms and opinions, which are commonly frained 

 only upon common and familiar examples ; the other 

 because from the wonders of nature is the nearest 

 intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art; 

 for it is no more but by following and as it were hound 

 ing nature in her wanderings, to be able to lead her 

 afterwards to the same place again.&quot; 



