PREFACE. XXI 



that Adam knew the natures of all beasts, and 

 Solomon of all plants, not only more than any, but 

 more than all since their time ; yet that was by 

 divine infusion, and therefore they did not need any 

 such Organum as your lordship hath now delivered 

 to the world ; nor we neither, if they had lefe us 

 the memories of their wisdom. 



But I am gone further than I meant in speaking 

 of this excellent labour, while the delight yet I feel, 

 and even the pride that I take in a certain congeni 

 ality, as I may term it, with your lordship s studies, 

 will scant let me cease : and indeed I owe your lord 

 ship even by promise, which you are pleased to re 

 member, thereby doubly binding me, some trouble 

 this way ; I mean, by the commerce of philosophical 

 experiments, which surely, of all other, is the most 

 ingenuous traffic : therefore, &c. 



the two, the misrepresentation is not less gross, nor the folly of 

 it less incontestable, than if the name of old man or old woman 

 were given to the infant in its cradle. 



What then is the wisdom of the times called old ? Is it the 

 wisdom of gray hairs ? No. It is the wisdom of the cradle. (r) 



(r) No one will deny that preceding ages have produced men 

 eminently distinguished by benevolence and genius; it is to them 

 that we owe in succession all the advances which have hitherto 

 been made in the career of human improvement : but as their 

 talents could only be developed in proportion to the state of 

 knowledge at the period in which they lived, and could only have 

 been called into action with a view to then-existing circumstances, 

 it is absurd to rely on their authority, at a period and under a 

 state of things altogether different. 



VOL. IX. C 



