INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 01 



Of the Duty of the Interpreter. 



10. Thus qualified and prepared let the interpreter pro 

 ceed in this way. He will consider the condition of man, 

 and remove the impediments of interpretation ; then, girded 

 up for his work, he will prepare a history and regular series 

 of tables, at the same time appointing their uses, coordina 

 tions, occurrences, and appendages. He will exhibit the 

 solitude of things and their resemblance of each other. 

 He will also make a selection of things, and those which 

 are most primitive or instant, that is, conduce especially to 

 the invention of other things, or to human wants, he will 

 place firs t in order. He will also observe the preeminences 

 of instances, which can do much to shorten his work. 

 And thus furnished, he will at length maturely and hap 

 pily undertake and complete, rearrangements and new 

 tables, and the interpretation itself now easy and following 

 spontaneously, nay, almost as if snatched away from the 

 mind. Which when he shall have accomplished, he will 

 immediately perceive and number, in their pure and native 

 light, the true, eternal, and simplest motions of nature, 

 from the ordinate and well adjusted progress of which 

 arises all this infinite variety, both of the present and of all 

 ages. And meanwhile from the beginning of his work he 

 will not fail to receive constantly, as interest, for human 

 affairs many things and unknown. But from hence again, 

 altogether directing himself to and intent upon the uses of 

 mankind, and the present state of things, he will, in di 

 verse ways, dispose and arrange the whole for action. To 

 natures the most secret he will assign others explanatory, 

 and to the most absent others superinductory. And then 

 at last, like a second nature, he will institute generalities, 

 the errors of which may be accounted monsters, yet also 

 saving to himself the prerogative of his art. 



Of the Provision of Things. 



11. But thou receivest these things with languid hope 

 and zeal, my son, and wonderest, if there remains such 

 store of works most fruitful and altogether unknown, that 

 they have not before this time, or now suddenly, been dis 

 covered ; at the same time thou inquirest what they are by 

 name, and promisest to thyself immortality, or freedom 

 from pain, or transporting pleasure. But thou bestowest 

 liberally upon thyself, my son, and wilt hunt after hope 

 from knowledge, as from ignorance thou didst begin to 



