INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 25 



matter : especially as such things usually appear laborious 

 to search, ignoble to meditate, harsh to deliver, illiberal to 

 practise, infinite in number, and contemptible in their mi 

 nuteness; and, though such qualities as these no ways 

 accommodate to the glory of the arts. And this opinion or 

 state of mind received much strength from another wild and 

 unfounded opinion, which held that truth is innate in the 

 mind of man, and not introduced from without, and that 

 the senses rather excite than inform the understanding. 

 Neither has this error, and (to describe it truly) delusion 

 of mind, been any ways corrected by those who have given 

 to sense the due, that is, the first place. Nay more, even 

 these by their example and practice, deserting altogether 

 natural history and actual experience, rested only upon 

 agitation of wit, and grovelled without ceasing among the 

 darkest idols of the understanding, under the specious name 

 of contemplation and reason. So he saw well that this 

 rejection and divorce of particulars has thrown the human 

 family into total disorder. 



He thought also, that we should not make our conjecture 

 from the hindrances we meet with ; only, since it is possible 

 that the fortune of mankind may overcome these difficul 

 ties and burst the barriers. Hence we must consider and 

 examine closely the nature of that philosophy which is 

 received, and whatever other, from ancient times, has been 

 cast upon our shores, like the spars of a sunken vessel. 

 And he found that the natural philosophy which we have 

 from the Greeks is to be accounted a kind of childhood of 

 science ; and that its properties are those which belong to 

 boys, that is, it is forward to chatter, but immature and un 

 qualified for generation. 



Aristotle, by common consent the chief of that philo 

 sophy, without ever meddling with the observation of 

 nature, has been unprofitably employed on stale opinions, 

 and on their comparison, opposition, and reduction. Nor 

 is it reasonable to hope for any thing solid from one 

 who has made up the world itself of categories. For 

 it is of little concern whether we lay down that matter, 

 form and privation, or substance, quality, and relation, are 

 the real principles : but we had best pass by those contro 

 versies ; for it would be inconsistent to set about a formal 

 confutation, when we neither agree about the principles, 

 nor the modes of demonstration ; and again, to lash with 

 ridicule one who has obtained an authority almost dictato 

 rial in philosophy, would have more levity than* suits the 

 dignity of the subject, and be moreover arrogant. He has 



