

TO THE READER. Vll 



building, should be forced to be a workman, and 

 a labourer, and to dig the clay, and burn the brick ; 

 and, more than that, according to the hard condition 

 of the Israelites at the latter end, to gather the 

 straw and stubble, over all the fields, to burn 

 the bricks withal. For he knoweth, that except he 

 do it, nothing will be done : men are so set to 

 despise the means of their own good. And as for 

 the baseness of many of the experiments ; as long 

 as they be God s works, they are honourable 

 enough. And for the vulgarness of them, true 

 axioms must be drawn from plain experience and 

 not from doubtful ; and his lordship s course is 

 to make wonders plain, arid not plain things 

 wonders ; and that experience likewise must be 

 broken and grinded, and not whole, or as it groweth. 

 And for use ; his lordship hath often in his mouth 

 the two kinds of experiments ; &quot; experimenta fruc- 

 tifera,&quot; and &quot; experimenta lucifera :&quot; experiments 

 of use, and experiments of light : and he reporteth 

 himself, whether he were not a strange man, that 

 should think that light hath no use, because it hath 

 no matter. Further, his lordship thought good also 

 to add unto many of the experiments themselves 

 some gloss of the causes : that in the succeeding 

 work of interpreting nature, and framing axioms, 

 all things may be in more readiness. And for the 

 causes herein by him assigned ; his lordship per- 

 suadeth himself, they are far more certain than 

 those that are rendered by others ; not for any 

 excellency of his own wit, as his lordship is wont 



