INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 115 



much that the dialecticians seem never once to have thought 

 of the subject in earnest, turning from it in a sort of dis 

 dain, and hurrying on to other things. Meantime this is 

 manifest, that the conclusions which are attained by any 

 species of induction are at once both discovered and 

 attested, and do not depend on axioms and middle truths, 

 but stand on their own weight of evidence, and require no 

 extrinsic proof. Much more then is it necessary that those 

 axioms which are raised according to the true form of in 

 duction, should be of self-contained proof, surer and more 

 solid than what are termed principles themselves ; and this 

 kind of induction is what we have been wont to term the 

 formula of interpretation. Therefore it is, that we desire to 

 be careful and luminous, in exposition, above all other 

 topics, of the construction of the axiom and the formula of 

 interpretation. There remain, however, subservient to this 

 end, three things of paramount importance, without explica 

 tion of which, the rule of inquisition, though potent in the 

 effect, may be regarded as operose in the application. These 

 are the continuing, varying, and contracting of the inquiry, 

 so that nothing may be left in the art either half-done, or 

 inconsistent, or too much lengthened out for the shortness 

 of man s life. We shall therefore show in the first place 

 the use of axioms (supposing them discovered by the for 

 mula,) for inquiring into and raising others higher and 

 more general, so that by a succession of firm and un 

 broken steps in the ladder of ascent, we may arrive at 

 the unity of nature. In this part, however, we shall add 

 the mode of examining and attesting these higher axioms 

 by the experimental results first obtained, lest we again 

 fall down to conjectures, probabilities, and idol-systems. 

 And this is the method which we term the continuing of 

 the inquiry. 



The varying of the inquisition accommodates itself to 

 the different nature, either of the causes to ascertain which 

 the inquiry is set on foot, or of the things or subjects 

 about which the inquiry is occupied. Therefore discard 

 ing final causes, which have hitherto utterly vitiated natu 

 ral philosophy, we shall commence with an inquiry, on the 

 plan of varying and adaptation, into forms, a branch which 

 has hitherto been abandoned as hopeless and not unrea 

 sonably. For no one can be so privileged either in his 

 powers of mind or in his good fortune, as to detect the 

 form of any thing by means of presumptive conjectures 

 and scholastic loo-ic. Then follow the divers sorts of mat- 



