10 THE GREAT INSTAURATION 



with better assistance to begin the work anew, and raise or 

 rebuild the sciences, arts, and all human knowledge from 

 a firm and solid basis. 



This may at first seem an infinite scheme, unequal to 

 human abilities, yet it will be found more sound and judi 

 cious than the course hitherto pursued, as tending to some 

 issue ; whereas all hitherto done with regard to the sciences 

 is vertiginous, or in the way of perpetual rotation. 



Nor is he ignorant that he stands alone in an experiment 

 almost too bold and astonishing to obtain credit, yet he 

 thought it not right to desert either the cause or himself, 

 but to boldly enter on the way and explore the only path 

 which is pervious to the human mind. For it is wiser to 

 engage in an undertaking that admits of some termination, 

 than to involve one s self in perpetual exertion and anxiety 

 about what is interminable. The ways of contemplation, 

 indeed, nearly correspond to two roads in nature, one of 

 which, steep and rugged at the commencement, terminates 

 in a plain; the other, at first view smooth and easy, leads 

 only to huge rocks and precipices. Uncertain, however, 

 whether these reflections would occur to another, and ob 

 serving that he had never met any person disposed to apply 

 his mind to similar thoughts, he determined to publish 

 whatsoever he found time to perfect. Nor is this the haste 

 of ambition, but anxiety, that if he should die there might 

 remain behind him some outline and determination of the 

 matter his mind had embraced, as well as some mark of his 

 sincere and earnest affection to promote the happiness 01 

 mankind. 



