30 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



only benefits to life, but pledges of truth. And, as it is 

 most justly required in religion that a man should show 

 his faith by works, it is right also in natural philosophy 

 that knowledge should be proved by its works in like 

 manner. For truth is rather shown and proved by the 

 evidence of works than by argument, or even sense. Hence 

 there is one and the same means of improving man s con 

 dition and his mind. So he saw that what has been said 

 of the dignity of the end we aim at and design, is not 

 strengthened, but really diminished by words. 



He thought also, that what has been said of the excel 

 lence of the end may appear accommodated to his wishes. 

 We must therefore inquire carefully what hope shines on 

 us, and on what side it appears : and we must be on our 

 guard that love of what is excellent and beautiful do not 

 make us lose or relax the rigour of our judgment. For it 

 is meet to bestow on this matter legal caution, which dis 

 trusts on principle, and takes the least favourable view of 

 human concerns. The lighter whisperings of hope must 

 therefore be rejected, but those which seem to have some 

 stability, discussed. And in taking a view of his pros 

 pects, it occurred to him, first, that what we are treating 

 of, by reason of the eminent nature of good, is manifestly 

 from God ; and that in the works of God the smallest 

 beginnings lead to their end. He had hope also from the 

 nature of time : for truth is by universal consent the 

 daughter of time. It is a mark therefore of utter weak 

 ness and narrowness of mind to attribute infinite effects to 

 authors, but to withhold its due from Time, the author of 

 authors and of all authority. Nor had he hope only in the 

 common right of time, but also in the superiority of our 

 own age. For the opinion of antiquity which men hold is 

 a hasty one, and not even agreeing with the name. For 

 the old age or more advanced period of the world is pro 

 perly to be called antiquity. And in truth, as we expect a 

 greater acquaintance with affairs and more matures judg 

 ment, in an old man than in a youth, by reason of his 

 experience, and his having seen and heard and thought 

 more; it is reasonable that in like manner we should hope 

 from our own age (if it knew its own strength, and would 

 essay and apply it) more than from former times, being a 

 more advanced age of the world, and enriched to fulness 

 with numberless experiments and observations. Nor must 

 we think it little that, in those distant voyages and travels 

 which have been frequent in our time, much has been dis- 



