34 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



tumult. Now if the utility of any single invention so 

 moved men, that they accounted more than man him who 

 could include the whole human race in some solitary bene 

 fit, that invention is certainly much more exalted, which 

 by a kind of mastery contains within itself all particular 

 inventions, and delivers the mind from bondage, and opens 

 it a road, that under sure and unerring guidance it may 

 penetrate to whatever can be of novelty and further ad 

 vancement. For as in the early ages, when sailors steered 

 their course only by observations of the heavenly bodies, 

 they coasted along the shores of the old continent, or ven 

 tured across some small internal seas : but it was necessary 

 that the use of the compass should be known, as a more 

 certain guide of the passage, before the ocean could be 

 crossed and the tracts of the new world discovered : in 

 like manner, all that has been hitherto invented in human 

 arts and sciences might have been found out by instinct, 

 experience, observation, meditation, being more obvious 

 to sense : but before we may stretch across to the more 

 distant and secret regions of nature, it is a necessary pro 

 vision, that some better and more perfect application and 

 management of the human mind be found out. Wherefore 

 such an invention as this would be, without doubt, a most 

 noble and truly masculine offspring of time. 



Again in the Holy Scripture he saw that Solomon the king, 

 while in the pride of his power, his riches, his magnificent 

 works, his guards, his household, his exact distribution and 

 arrangement of slaves and domestics, his fleet moreover, the 

 renown of his name, and the greatest honour from men : 

 thought none of these his true glory, but said, that &quot; the 

 glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the 

 king is to find it out,&quot; as if the divine nature took delight 

 in the innocent and playful sport of children, who hide 

 themselves that they may be found out ; and from his 

 indulgence and graciousness to men, chose the human soul 

 his playfellow. And the glory of inventions is that they 

 raise human nature, without hurting any one (as civil 

 affairs commonly do), and do not press or sting a man s 

 conscience, but bestow on all rewards and blessings with 

 out the sacrifice, or injury, or sorrow of one. For the 

 nature of light is pure and harmless, it may be perverted in 

 its use, but not polluted in itself. 



Again, taking note of the purposes and ambitions of men, 

 he observed three kinds of ambition, if it be allowed to give 

 that name to one of them : the first is of those who struggle 



