V11I TO THE READER. 



to say, but in respect of his continual conversation 

 with nature, and experience. He did consider like 

 wise, that by this addition of causes, men s minds, 

 which make so much haste to find out the causes 

 of things, would not think themselves utterly lost 

 in a vast wood of experience, but stay upon these 

 causes, such as they are, a little, till true axioms 

 may be more fully discovered. I have heard his 

 lordship say also, that one great reason, why 

 he would not put these particulars into any exact 

 method, though he that looketh attentively into 

 them shall find that they have a secret order, was, 

 because he conceived that other men would now 

 think that they could do the like ; and so go 

 on with a further collection : which, if the method 

 had been exact, many would have despaired to 

 attain by imitation. As for his lordship s love of 

 order, I can refer any man to his lordship s Latin 

 book, De Augmentis Scientiarum ; which, if my 

 judgment be any thing, is written in the exactest 

 order that I know any writing to be. I will 

 conclude with an usual speech of his lordship s ; 

 That this work of his Natural History is the World 

 as God made it, and not as men have made it ; for 

 that it hath nothing of imagination. 



W. RAWLEY. 



&amp;lt;* 



This epistle is the same, that should have been prefixed to 

 this book, if his lordship had lived. 



