[PREFATORY NOTE BY THE AUTHOR.] 



IF this Discourse appear too long to be read at 

 once, it may be divided into six parts : and, in the 

 first, will be found various considerations touching 

 the Sciences; in the second, the principal rules of 

 the Method which the Author has discovered; in the 

 third, certain of the rules of Morals which he has 

 deduced from this Method ; in the fourth, the rea 

 sonings by which he establishes the existence of 

 God and of the Human Soul, which are the founda 

 tions of his Metaphysic, in the fifth, the order of 

 the Physical questions which he has investigated, 

 and, in particular, the explication of the motion of 

 the heart and of some other difficulties pertaining 

 to Medicine, as also the difference between the soul 

 of man and that of the brutes ; and, in the last, what 

 the Author believes to be required in order to 

 greater advancement in the investigation of Nature 

 than has yet been made, with the reasons that have 

 induced him to write. 



