PHENOMENA OF THE UNIVERSE. 123 



For so our knowledge of them will be at once deep and 

 secure, and will be moreover at hand, and the sources of 

 utility will be multiplied. But the first principles of this 

 design must be derived from the knowledge of nature. For 

 all the philosophy of the Greeks, with all their different 

 sects, and, indeed, whatever other philosophy may be men 

 tioned, appears to have been built upon too narrow a basis 

 and on an insufficient acquaintance with nature. For 

 taking up some few things from experience and from tra 

 dition, and that sometimes without accurate examination, 

 they placed the rest in meditation and in the exercise of 

 their ingenuity; relying too much upon dialectics : but the 

 chymists and the whole class of mechanics and empirics, 

 if they conducted their observations and philosophy with 

 more boldness, being accustomed to an accurate nicety in 

 some things, bend all others by the most singular methods 

 to them ; and give out opinions the most monstrous and 

 unnatural. For the one class, out of many things take but 

 little, the other out of but little take much into the body of 

 their philosophy; and to speak the truth, the method of 

 either class is unsound, and will not hold. &quot;But the know 

 ledge of nature which has been hitherto collected, however 

 copious it may at first sight appear, is really meagre and 

 unprofitable. Neither is it of that kind for which we are 

 inquiring. Nor is it yet cleared of fable and absurdity, 

 but runs out into antiquity and philology, and relations 

 of things unconnected with it, neglecting and rejecting 

 what is solid, but laboriously curious upon trifles. But the 

 worst of this kind of copiousness is this, that it embraces 

 the investigation of natural objects, and yet for the most 

 part declines the study of things mechanical. And these 

 are the very things which by far excel the others in the 

 searching out the secrets of nature, for nature being of 

 itself vast and diffuse, dissipates the mind and confounds 

 it by its variety. But in mechanical operations the judg 

 ment is collected and the designs and workings of nature 

 are discerned, and not the effects only. And besides, all 

 the subtlety of mechanics stops short of the object which 

 we seek. For the person thus employed being intent upon 

 his work and object, neither raises his mind nor stretches 

 forth his hand to other things, and which perchance avail 

 more to the investigation of nature. There is need, there 

 fore, of greater care and choice kinds of examination and 

 even of expense, and moreover of the greatest patience. 

 For this hath rendered every thing in the department of 

 experiment useless, that men have from the beginning 



