108 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



of the mind itself, and either to extirpate its native idols, 

 or if they cannot be rooted up, so to point them out and 

 thoroughly comprehend them, that deviations may be recti 

 fied. For it would be futile, and perhaps pernicious, merely 

 to overturn and explode errors in philosophy, if from the 

 incorrigible grain of the mind a new off-shoot of errors, per 

 haps even degenerated from their predecessors, should 

 sprout; and not till all hope is precluded, of perfecting 

 philosophy or enlarging its empire by the exercise of or 

 dinary reason, and by the helps and aids of the received 

 logic, ought we to abandon and discard them ; lest haply 

 we do not thereby banish, but only change our errors. 

 Wherefore that part of the book which we term the des 

 troying, consists of a threefold argument of redargutioA 

 or exposure ; redargution of the philosophies ; redargution 

 of the demonstrations; and redargution of human reason in 

 its natural course. 



And it does not escape us, that without so immense a 

 revolution, no small accretion to science might result from 

 our labours, and celebrity be attainable by a smoother path. 

 Nevertheless, being uncertain when the same views may 

 enter the mind of any other man, we have determined to 

 make a full and free profession of our creed. 



After having levelled the area of the mind, it follows in 

 order, that we must place the mind in an advantageous 

 position, and, as it were, in a kindly exposure to the rays 

 of what we propound. For since, in a matter of novelty, 

 not merely the violent preoccupation of old opinion, but 

 also a false preconception or conjectural picture of that 

 which is offered, disposes to prejudice, we must also apply 

 a remedy to this disorder, and the mind must not only be 

 disencumbered but prepared. That preparation is nothing 

 more than to have true opinions of that which we allege 

 imparted provisionally only, as it were, and by way of loan, 

 previous to a thorough knowledge of the thing itself. Now 

 this mainly depends on shutting out and holding in abey 

 ance those foul and malign suspicions, which we may easily 

 augur, will from the prejudices now in vogue, as from the 

 contagion of an epidemic fanatical gloom, seize upon men s 

 minds ; wherefore it behoves us to see, as Lucretius hath it, 



&quot; Ne qua 

 Occurrat facies inimica atque omnia turbet.&quot; 



First then, if any one think that the secrets of nature 

 remain shut up, as it were, with the seal of God, and by 



