VI TO THE READER. 



History was a debt of his, being designed and set 

 down for a third part of the Instauration. I have 

 also heard his lordship discourse that men, no doubt, 

 will think many of the experiments, contained in 

 this collection, to be vulgar and trivial, mean and 

 sordid, curious and fruitless : and therefore, he 

 wisheth that they would have perpetually before 

 their eyes what is now in doing, and the difference 

 between this Natural History and others. For those 

 Natural Histories which are extant, being gathered 

 for delight and use, are full of pleasant descriptions 

 and pictures, and affect and seek after admiration, 

 rarities, and secrets. But, contrariwise, the scope 

 which his lordship intendeth, is to write such a 

 Natural History, as may be fundamental to the 

 erecting and building of a true philosophy, for the 

 illumination of the understanding, the extracting 

 of axioms, and the producing of many noble works 

 and effects. For he hopeth by this means to acquit 

 himself of that for which he taketh himself in a sort 

 bound, and that is, the advancement of all learning 

 and sciences. For, having in this present work 

 collected the materials for the building, and in his 

 Novum Organum, of which his lordship is yet 

 to publish a second part, set down the instruments 

 and directions for the work ; men shall now be 

 wanting to themselves, if they raise not knowledge 

 to that perfection whereof the nature of mortal men 

 is capable. Arid in this behalf, I have heard his 

 lordship speak complainingly, that his lordship, who 

 thinketh he deserveth to be an architect in this 



