THE SECOND BOOK 77 



and administration of learning. For it is not Saint 

 Augustine s nor Saint Ambrose works that will make 

 so wise a divine, as ecclesiastical history, throughly 

 read and observed ; and the same reason is of learning. 



3. History of nature is of three sorts : of nature in 

 course ; of nature erring or varying ; and of nature 

 altered or wrought ; that is, history of creatures, 

 history of marvels, and history of arts. The first of 

 these no doubt is extant, and that in good perfection : 

 the two latter are handled so weakly and unprofitably, 

 as I am moved to note them as deficient. . . 

 For I find no sufficient or competent col- ^f^ae 

 lection of the works of nature which have Errantia 



a digression and deflexion from the ordin 

 ary course of generations, productions, and motions ; 

 whether they be singularities of place and religion, or 

 the strange events of time and chance, or the effects 

 of yet unknown proprieties, or the instances of excep 

 tion to general kinds. It is true, I find a number of 

 books of fabulous experiments and secrets, and frivolous 

 impostures for pleasure and strangeness ; but a sub 

 stantial and severe collection of the heteroclites or 

 irregulars of nature, well examined and described, 

 I find not : specially not with due rejection of fables 

 and popular errors. For as things now are, if an 

 untruth in nature be once on foot, what by reason of the 

 neglect of examination, and countenance of antiquity, 

 and what by reason of the use of the opinion in simili 

 tudes and ornaments of speech, it is never called 

 down. 



4. The use of this work, honoured with a precedent 

 in Aristotle, is nothing less than to give contentment 

 to the appetite of curious and vain wits, as the manner 

 of Mirabilaries is to do ; but for two reasons, both of 

 great weight ; the one to correct the partiality of 

 axioms and opinions, which are commonly framed only 

 upon common and familiar examples ; the other because 

 from the wonders of nature is the nearest intelligence 

 and passage towards the wonders of art : for it is no 

 more but by following, and as it were hounding nature 



