38 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



in the discovery of fire, because the former have no supply of 

 flints ? In those things, therefore, which are at hand chance 

 gives inventions in plenty; in those which are removed from 

 common use, she travails and brings forth more sparingly, 

 but yet in all ages. For no cause can be seen why chance 

 should be thought to have grown old and past the time of 

 bearing. He thought, therefore, that if many discoveries 

 chance to men without seeking, and while otherwise em 

 ployed, no one can doubt that if the same men were to 

 search, and by rule and order, not by fits and starts, many 

 more things must be discovered. For though it may happen 

 in one or two cases that some one may by chance hit upon 

 what has escaped him before when straining all his powers 

 in the inquiry, yet, without doubt, the contrary will appear 

 in the long run. For chance works thinly, and slowly, and 

 irregularly ; but art constantly, and rapidly, and con 

 nectedly. From those inventions also, which are already 

 brought to light, he thought it might be truly conjectured 

 about those which are yet hidden. But some of them are of 

 that kind that, before their discovery, surmises of them would 

 not readily come into any one s mind. For men commonly 

 guess at new things by a likeness to old ones, and by ideas 

 learned of them, which is a very vain way of thinking, since 

 those things that are sought from the fountain-head do not 

 flow through the common channels. Thus, if some one, 

 before the invention of fire-arms, had described them by 

 their effects, and had said that a discovery was just made 

 by means of which walls and the strongest fortifications 

 might be battered and beaten down from a great distance, 

 men would certainly reason much and variously about mul 

 tiplying the powers of casting engines and machinery, by 

 weights, wheels, and the like ; but the idea of a fiery wind 

 could scarcely occur, as what they had never seen an in 

 stance of, except perchance in an earthquake or thunder 

 storm which they had neglected as not imitable. In like 

 manner if, before the invention of silken thread, some one 

 had spoken thus : that there was a certain kind of thread 

 useful for dress and furniture, which much excelled linen 

 and woollen thread in fineness and, notwithstanding, strength, 

 and moreover gloss and softness ; men would immediately 

 begin to think of some vegetable silk, or the delicate part 

 of some animal s hair, or the feathers and down of birds, but 

 would never guess the fabric of a worm, and that too in such 

 plenty and every year. And if any one had dropped a hint 

 about worms, he would certainly have been ridiculed for 



