86 NOVUM ORGAXUM 



have been laughed at as if dreaming of some new manufac 

 ture from spiders. 



So again, if before the discovery of the compass, any one 

 had said, That an instrument had been invented, by which 

 the quarters and points of the heavens could be exactly 

 taken and distinguished, men would have entered into dis 

 quisitions on the refinement of astronomical instruments, 

 and the like, from the excitement of their imaginations; but 

 the thought of anything being discovered, which, not being 

 a celestial body, but a mere mineral or metallic substance, 

 should yet in its motion agree with that of such bodies, 

 would have appeared absolutely incredible. Yet were these 

 facts, and the like (unknown for so many ages) not discov 

 ered at last either by philosophy or reasoning, but by chance 

 and opportunity; and (as we have observed), they are of a 

 nature most heterogeneous, and remote from what was 

 hitherto known, so that no previous knowledge could lead 

 to them. 



We may, therefore, well hope 01 that many excellent and 

 useful matters are yet treasured up in the bosom of nature, 

 bearing no relation or analogy to our actual discoveries, but 

 out of the common track of our imagination, and still undis 

 covered, and which will doubtless be brought to light in the 

 course and lapse of years, as the others have been before 

 them; but in the way we now point out, they may rapidly 

 and at once be both represented and anticipated. 



CX. There are, moreover, some inventions which render 



* This hope has been abundantly realized in the discovery of gravity and 

 the decomposition of light, mainly by the inductive method. To a better phi 

 losophy we may also attribute the discovery of electricity, galvanism and their 

 mutual connection with each other, and magnetism, the inventions of the air- 

 pump, steam-engine aud the chronometer. 



