118 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



to be brideuiuid. Let it then be the votive part of the 

 nuptial hymn, that from their union may rise and descend 

 a progeny of helps to man s life, a line, so to speak, of 

 heroes to conquer and command the wants and the mise 

 ries of humanity. 



At the conclusion we shall add some remarks on the 

 combination and the succession of scientific efforts. For 

 then, and not till then, shall men know their own strength, 

 not when multitudes devote themselves as now to the same 

 tasks, but when some shall appropriate what is neglected 

 by the rest. Nor truly have we abandoned hope of after- 

 times, that there shall rise up men to advance to a nobler 

 state a work commencing from such slender beginnings. 

 For it is borne in upon our mind, that what is now done, 

 from the supreme importance of the good it contains to 

 man, is manifestly of God. And in His workings, every 

 the most insignificant germ of the future is pregnant with 

 results. 



Now in the redargution of the received philosophies 

 which we intend, we scarcely know whither at first to turn 

 ourselves, since the avenue to confutation of the same, 

 which was to others open, is to us inhibited. And besides, 

 so many and so vast are the troops of error which present 

 themselves, that we must overthrow and dislodge them, 

 not in close detail but in mass : and if we would draw near 

 unto them, and try conclusions, hand to hand, with each of 

 them individually, it were in vain: the rule of all reason 

 ing being set aside, differing as we do from them in our 

 principles, and repudiating as we do the very forms and 

 authority of their proofs and demonstrations. And if 

 (which seems to be the only thing left for us to do) we 

 attempted to infer and derive from experience the truths 

 we maintain, we are only turning back to the starting 

 point. And forgetting what we have discoursed of the 

 preparing of men s minds, we are found going directly the 

 opposite way : and falling all at once and prematurely on 

 nature; to which we have pronounced it absolutely neces 

 sary that we open up and pave a way, because of the obdu 

 rate prejudices and impediments of the minds of men. 

 Nevertheless we shall not be wanting to ourselves, but shall 

 try to confront them, and prove our strength, in manner 

 accommodated to our design, both by producing certain 

 tokens from which an estimate may be formed of these 

 philosophies, and meanwhile rioting among the philoso 

 phies themselves, so as to shake their authority, certain 



