INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 17 



that &quot; composition is the work of man, but mixture is the 

 work of nature alone &quot; and the like ; which, if they be 

 carefully examined, all tend to an envious circumscription 

 of human power, and a voluntary and artificial despair, 

 which rejects not only the auguries of hope, but the chances 

 of experiment, and cuts away all the incitements and nerves 

 of industry ; while they are solicitous, only, that their art 

 be thought perfect, and labour for a most worthless vain 

 glory; namely, to have it believed that all is impossible 

 that is not already found. But the Alchymist, to relieve 

 his art, throws the blame on his own errors, accusing him 

 self, either of not fully understanding the terms of the art 

 and its authors, which makes him attend to the whispers 

 of tradition and oral evidence ; or else of failing in the true 

 proportions, and scruples, and moments of practice ; which 

 makes him renew infinitely his trials, under what he sup 

 poses more favourable prospects. And, meantime, when 

 in the mazy labyrinth of experiment, he lights upon certain 

 inventions, either new in appearance or of some utility, 

 he feeds his mind with such foretastes, and displays arid 

 magnifies them above their value, and supplies the rest in 

 hopes. The magician, when he finds something, as he 

 conceives, above nature effected, and is convinced that a 

 breach is once made in nature, gives his imagination wings, 

 and scarcely allows that the matter admits of degrees of 

 greater or less ; wherefore he assures himself of arriving at 

 the highest power; not seeing that they are but subjects of 

 a certain and almost definite kind, wherein magic and 

 superstition, in all ages and countries, have had power and 

 played. The mechanical person, if he chances to add a 

 higher finish or more elegant ornament to previous inven 

 tions, or to compound, and bring together into one, separate 

 observations ; or to couple things more commodiously and 

 naturally with their use ; or to produce the work in greater 

 or less mass and volume than has usually been the case ; 

 ranks himself at length among inventors. So he saw well, 

 that men came to sneer at the invention of new things 

 and arts as a vain attempt, and not to be relied on ; or to 

 believe that important inventions are indeed extant, but 

 confined among a few, in the strictest silence and mystery ; 

 or else that they descend to account those little industries 

 and additions, inventions. All which turns to the averting 

 of men s minds from just and constant labour, and from the 

 working of inventions, noble and worthy of the human 

 race. 



VOL. xv. 



