32 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



monstrations, does not agree on natural philosophy with 

 others, either ancient or modern. For it cannot be (to 

 speak jestingly), that the drinkers of water and wine should 

 feel alike. For they swallow a raw fluid, either flowing 

 spontaneously from the mind or pumped up with some 

 labour; but he drinks a liquor prepared from innumerable 

 grapes mature and in season, plucked and heaped up in 

 bunches, afterwards squeezed in the winepress, purified in 

 the vat, and clarified; which will bear time, and at the 

 same time is corrected of all intoxicating quality, by neither 

 giving nor leaving any room for the vapours of the fancy. 

 So he saw that the philosophies of which we have spoken 

 should be rejected, not only for their barrenness of works, 

 but for the weakness and fallaciousness of their demonstra 

 tions also, since they are not only removed from nature, but 

 deserted and betrayed by the very auxiliaries they have 

 raised. 



He thought also, that we should make a separate review 

 of the modes of invention in use, if there be any. But in 

 this quarter not so much misleading and devious paths, as 

 solitude and vacancy, are found, which strike the mind 

 with a kind of stupor. It has not been the object or desire 

 of any man to guide the force of human wit and under 

 standing to the invention and improvement of arts and 

 sciences, and hew a road thither ; but the whole has been 

 and is left to the dimness of tradition, the steps and fury 

 of arguments, or the waves and turnings of chance and 

 experiment. Hence, it was not without reason, that, in 

 the temples of the Egyptians, who (as was the custom of 

 antiquity) used to deify inventors, so many images of 

 brutes were found ; since animals without the light of 

 reason have &quot;been, almost as much as men, the discoverers 

 of nature s operations, nor have men in this matter made 

 much use of their prerogative. We must however examine 

 what is done. And first of the simple and untaught mode 

 of invention which is common with men, it is no other than 

 that he who girds and prepares himself for an invention, 

 first inquires and learns what others have said on the 

 subject, then adds his own reflection. But for a man to 

 commit himself to the guidance of others, or to intreat and 

 almost invoke his own spirit to give him oracles, is a pro 

 ceeding without ground. Next follows the invention in 

 use with logicians, which has only a nominal connexion 

 with the matter in hand. For it is not of principles and 

 axioms, of which arts consist, but only of what seems 



