INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 23 



imagination, but greater diffidence, openly despair of any 

 increase of knowledge, from reflecting on the obscurity of 

 nature, the shortness of life, the uncertainty of the senses, 

 the weakness of the judgment, and the difficulties and un 

 bounded variety of experiments. So that such swelling- 

 hopes, as promise more than we now have, are the offspring 

 of a weak and unripened mind, and will no doubt have 

 their beginning in exultation, their middle course in diffi 

 culty, and their end in confusion; and there is as little 

 hope of the reward as of the accomplishment ; for know 

 ledges evidently breed and expand in great and excellent 

 wits, but the estimation and price of them is in the multi 

 tude, or in the inclinations of princes and great persons 

 meanly learned. So that the projection of sciences and the 

 judgment upon them are not in the same ; whence it comes 

 that those inventions only succeed which are accommo 

 dated to popular reason and common sense ; as happened 

 in the case of Democritus theory of atoms, which being a 

 little too remote was treated with ridicule. Hence sublime 

 views of nature, which, almost like religion, must enter the 

 senses of men with difficulty, may be now and then con 

 ceived, but (unless proved and recommended by evident 

 and exceeding utility, which hitherto has not been the case) 

 are generally in a short time blown and extinguished by 

 the winds of common opinions ; so that time, like a river, 

 is wont to bring down to us what is light and blown up, 

 while it sinks and drowns that which is solid and grave. 

 So he saw well that the hindrances of an improved state 

 of the sciences were, not only external and adventitious, 

 but innate also and drawn from our very senses. 



Moreover, he thought that the vagueness and irregular 

 form of words mocks the understanding and, as it were, 

 attacks it ; for words are like coins which represent the 

 image and authority of the people ; for they always com 

 pound and classify according to popular notions and ac 

 ceptation which are for the most part erroneous and very 

 confused ; so that even infants in learning to speak, are 

 compelled to suck in and swallow a pernicious system of 

 error. And though the wise and learned endeavour by 

 various contrivances to deliver themselves from this bon 

 dage, by making new words which is harsh, and by insert 

 ing definitions which is troublesome, they cannot, with all 

 their strength, throw off the yoke ; so that innumerable con 

 troversies, even in the most acute discussions, are raised 

 about words, and, what is much worse, that depraved 



