XX PREFACE. 



work, which came hut this week to my hands, I 

 shall find occasion to speak more hereafter ; having 

 yet read only the first book thereof, and a few 

 aphorisms of the second. For it is not a banquet 

 that men may superficially taste, and put up the rest 

 in their pockets ; but in truth a solid feast, which 

 requireth due mastication. Therefore when I have 

 once myself perused the whole, I determine to have 

 it read piece by piece at certain hours in my do 

 mestic college as an ancient author ; for I have 

 learned thus much by it already, that we are ex 

 tremely mistaken in the computation of antiquity,(^) 

 by searching it backwards, because indeed the first 

 times were the youngest ; especially in points of na 

 tural discovery and experience. For though I grant 



(9) Bentham in his Book of Fallacies, says : . 



&quot; What in common language is called old time, ought (with 

 reference to any period at which the fallacy in question is em 

 ployed) to be called young or early time. 



As between individual and individual living at the same time 

 and in the same situation, he who is old, possesses, as such, more 

 experience than he who is young ; as between generation and 

 generation, the reverse of this is true, if, as in ordinary language, 

 a preceding generation be, with reference to a succeeding genera 

 tion, called old ; the old or preceding generation could not have 

 had so much experience as the succeeding. With respect to 

 such of the materials or sources of wisdom which have come un 

 der the cognisance of their own senses, the two are on a par : 

 with respect to such of those materials and sources of wisdom as 

 are derived from the reports of others, the later of the two pos 

 sesses an indisputable advantage. 



In giving the name of old or elder to the earlier generation of 



