THE SECOND BOOK. 85 



and vice in morality. But this part touching angels and 

 spirits I cannot note as deficient, for many have occupied 

 themselves in it ; I may rather challenge it, in many of the 

 writers thereof, as fabulous and fantastical. 



VII. (1) Leaving therefore divine philosophy or natural the 

 ology (not divinity or inspired theology, which we reserve for 

 the last of all as the haven and sabbath of all man s contem 

 plations) we will now proceed to natural philosophy. If then 

 it be true that Democritus said, &quot;That the truth of nature 

 lieth hid in certain deep mines and caves ; &quot; and if it be true 

 likewise that the alchemists do so much inculcate, that Vulcan 

 is a second nature, and imitateth that dexterously and com 

 pendiously, which nature worketh by ambages and length of 

 time, it were good to divide natural philosophy into the mine 

 and the furnace, and to make two professions or occupations 

 of natural philosophers some to be pioneers and some smiths ; 

 some to dig, and some to refine and hammer. And surely I 

 do best allow of a division of that kind, though in more 

 familiar and scholastical terms : namely, that these be the 

 two parts of natural philosophy the inquisition of causes, , and 

 the production of effects ; speculative and operative ; natural 

 science, and natural prudence. For as in civil matters there 

 is a wisdom of discourse, and a wisdom of direction ; so is it 

 in natural. And here I will make a request, that for the 

 latter (or at least for a part thereof) I may revive and reinte 

 grate the misapplied and abused name of natural magic, which 

 in the true sense is but natural wisdom, or natural prudence ; 

 taken according to the ancient acception, purged from vanity 

 and superstition. Now although it be true, and I know it 

 well, that there is an intercourse between causes and effects, so 

 AS both these knowledges, speculative and operative, have a 

 great connection between themselves ; yet because all true and 

 fruitful natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder, 

 ascendent and descendent, ascending from experiments to the 

 invention of causes, and descending from causes to the inven 

 tion of new experiments ; therefore I judge it most requisite 

 that these two parts be severally considered and handled. 



(2) Natural science or theory is divided into physic and 

 metaphysic ; wherein I desire it may be conceived that I use 

 the word metaphysic in a differing sense from that that is 

 received. And in like manner, I doubt not but it will easily 

 appear to men of judgment, that in this and other particulars, 

 wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from the 

 ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms. For 

 hoping well to deliver myself from mistaking, by the order and 



