INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 93 



contain a genuine similitude known to the interpreter. 

 But God is as similar to thee and without a figure. Where 

 fore expect from hence no sufficient light for the knowledge 

 of him. Give faith to what is of faith. 



CHAPTER FIRST. 



Legitimate Mode of delivering. 



I PERCEIVE, my son, that many in bringing forward, or on 

 the other hand in concealing the knowledge of things 

 which they conceive themselves to have attained, do oways 

 conduct themselves according to their credit and duty. 

 With equal detriment, though perhaps less blame, do those 

 also offend who, though of excellent qualifications, are yet 

 imprudent, and possess no art or precepts concerning the 

 several modes of propounding things. Yet need we not 

 make complaint regarding this malignity or ignorance in 

 the teachers of knowledge. If indeed through the unskil- 

 fulness of teaching they were to destroy the importance of 

 things, one might be angry not without cause ; but we 

 ought to consider that the importunity of teaching doth 

 even by right belong to the impertinences of things. But 

 far different from these, when I am going to impart to thee, 

 not the fictions of ingenuity, nor the shadows of words or 

 the devotion mingled therewith, nor certain popular obser 

 vations, or certain noble experiments trimmed up into the 

 fables of theory, but in truth to bind and make over unto 

 thee nature with her offspring ; does the argument I have 

 before rne seem worthy of being polluted by the ambition 

 or ignorance or faultiness of any sort with which it is 

 treated ? May I be such, my son, and may I so extend to 

 its given limits the narrowness never enough lamented of 

 man s empire over the universe (which of things human is 

 my sole wish), that most faithfully and from the deepest 

 providence of my mind, and the well explored state of 

 things and of minds, I may deliver these to thee in the 

 most legitimate mode of all. But now which (thou wilt 

 say) is that legitimate mode ? Dismiss all art and circum 

 stance, exhibit the matter naked to us, that we may be 

 enabled to use our judgment. And would that you were 

 in a condition, dearest son, to admit of this being done. 

 Thinkest thou, that, when all the accesses and motions of 

 all minds are besieged and obstructed by the obscurest 

 idols deeply rooted and branded in, the sincere and po- 



