90 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



accurately distinguished the course of knowledge and the 

 seats of error, shall find all things masked and, as it were, 

 enchanted, and, till he undo the charm, shall be unable to 

 interpret. 



8. He who is occupied in inquiring into the causes of 

 things obvious and compound, as flame, dreams, fever, and 

 doth not betake himself to simple natures ; first, to those 

 which are popularly esteemed such; next, to those which 

 by art are reduced and, as it were, sublimed to truer sim 

 plicity, he shall perhaps, if in the rest he err not, add to in 

 ventions some things not to be contemned, and next to in 

 ventions. But he shall effect nothing against the greater 

 secularities of things, nor shall he be named an inter 

 preter. 



Of the Qualities of the Interpreter. 



9. Let him who comes to interpret thus prepare and 

 qualify himself; let him not be a follower of novelty, nor 

 of custom or antiquity ; neither let him embrace the license 

 of contradicting or the servitude of authority. Let him 

 not be hasty to affirm or unrestrained in doubting, but let 

 him produce every thing marked with a certain degree of 

 probation. Let hope be the cause of labour to him not of 

 idleness. Let him estimate things not by their rareness, 

 difficulty, or credit, but by their real importance. Let him 

 manage his private affairs under a mask, yet with some 

 regard for the provisions of things. Let him prudently 

 observe the first entrances of errors into truths, and of 

 truths into errors, nothing contemning or admiring. Let 

 him know the advantages of his nature; and let him 

 humour the nature of others, for no man is angry with the 

 stone that is striking him. Let him as it were with one 

 eye scan the natures of things ; with the other, the uses of 

 mankind. Of words let him distinctly know the mixed 

 nature, which especially partakes of advantage and of in 

 convenience. Let him determine that with inventions the 

 art of inventing grows. Also let him not be vain in con 

 cealing or in setting forth the knowledge which he hath 

 obtained, but ingenuous and prudent, and let him com 

 mend his inventions, not ambitiously or spitefully, but first 

 in a manner most vivid and fresh, that is, most fortified 

 against the injuries of time, and most powerful for the 

 propagation of science, then least c apable of begetting 

 errors, and, above all, such as mayp rocure him a legiti 

 mate reader. 



