112 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



The things which make for the perfecting of the intellect 

 in the interpretation of nature, may be divided into three 

 ministrations to the same, ministration to sense, ministration 

 to memory, and ministration to reason. In ministration to 

 the senses we shall make exposition of three things, first, 

 how a good notion is collected and elicited, and how the 

 testimony of sense, which is ever according to the analogy 

 of man, may be reduced and rectified to the analogy of the 

 universe. For we do not attach much weight to the imme 

 diate perceptions of sense, except only in so far as it 

 manifests motion or change in its objects. Secondly, we 

 shall show how those things which baffle the sense, either 

 by intangibility of the entire substance, or by minuteness 

 of parts, or by remoteness of place, or by slowness or celerity 

 of motion, or by habitual familiarity of the object, or other 

 wise, may be brought under the jurisdiction of sense, and 

 placed at its bar; and, furthermore, in cases where they 

 cannot be produced, what is then to be done; and how such 

 deficiency may be filled up by skilful noting of gradations, 

 or by informations as to inanimate bodies derived from the 

 analogy of corresponding sentient ones, or by other modes 

 and substitutions. In the last place, we shall speak of a 

 Natural History, and the method of performing experiments; 

 what that Natural History is, which will serve as a founda 

 tion for philosophy ; and again what method of experiment 

 ing, in the want of such natural history, must be resorted 

 to ; wherein we shall also interweave some observations as 

 to calling forth and arresting the attention. For there are 

 many things both in natural history and in experiments, 

 present to knowledge, absent to use, because the apprehen 

 sive faculty hath been feebly drawn forth to note them. 



Ministration to the senses is comprehended in three 

 particulars. The senses are to be furnished with materials, 

 with helps where they fail, and helps where they err. To the 

 materials of the senses are appropriated history and experi 

 ments, to their short-comings fit substitutions, to their 

 declination rules of correction. 



Ministration to memory hath this for its function ; out 

 of the mass of particular facts, and the accumulation of 

 facts forming natural history general, it extracts a history 

 particular, and arranges it in such order, that the judgment 

 can forthwith act, and do its office. For it befits us pru 

 dently to calculate the powers of the mind, and not to hope 

 that they can expatiate at large over the infinity of nature. 

 For it is manifest that the memory is defective and incom- 



