INTEUi RETATIOX OF NATURE. 117 



The doctrine of the active part of reason and its minis 

 tration, we shall comprehend in three directions, first pre 

 mising two admonitions to open an entrance into the 

 minds of men. The first of these is, that in the inquiry, 

 proceeding according to the formula laid down, the active 

 part of reason should have a perpetual intercommunion 

 with the contemplative. For the nature of things con 

 strains that the propositions and axioms inferred and 

 trained down to particular and practical uses, by process 

 of reasoning, should yield only a sort of guesses exceed 

 ingly obscure and imperfect. Whereas an axiom drawn 

 from particulars to new and corresponding ones, leads on 

 investigation in a broad and indestructible path. The 

 other premonition is this, that we remember that, in the 

 active branch of the inquiry, the business is to be accom 

 plished by means of the ladder of descent, the use of which 

 we waived in the contemplative. For every operation is 

 occupied about individual experiments whose place is at 

 the bottom of all. We must therefore descend the steps 

 that lie between general truths and these. Nor, again, is 

 it practicable to get at these by means of axioms taken 

 unconnectedly ; for every practical operation, and the mode 

 of performing it, is at once suggested and effected by 

 applying a combination of isolated axioms. With these 

 preliminaries then, we come to our threefold exposition 

 of the doctrine of active interpretation. The first part 

 propounds a defined and appropriate method of inquiry, in 

 which not the cause or governing axiom, but the effecting 

 of any operation is the object in view, and is submitted to 

 examination. The second shows the way of making gene 

 ral tables with a special view to practice, in which may be 

 much more easily and readily found all sorts of sugges 

 tions and indications of works. The third subjoins a mode 

 of ascertaining and striking out new practical uses, an in 

 complete mode no doubt, and yet not without utility, which 

 travels from one experiment to another, without deducing 

 of axioms. For as from axiom to axiom, so from experi 

 ment to experiment, there is presented and opened up a 

 passage to discovery, narrow irhieed and slippery, yet not 

 to be wholly passed over in silence. And here ,jve con 

 clude the ministration to practice being the last in the 

 order of distribution. This then is a plain and succinct 

 abstract of the second book. 



These things being unfolded, we trust to have w r ell con 

 structed and furnished withal, the marriage chamber of 

 mind and the universe, the divine goodness not disdaining- 



