XOVUM OROANUM 111 



conveying form to particular substances) may perhaps arrive 

 at some new discoveries in matters of a similar nature, and 

 prepared for the purpose, but does not stir the limits of 

 things which are much more deeply rooted; while he who 

 is acquainted with forms, comprehends the unity of nature 

 in substances apparently most distinct from each other. He 

 can disclose and bring forward, therefore (though it has 

 never yet been done), things which neither the vicissitudes 

 of nature, nor the industry of experiment, nor chance itself, 

 would ever have brought about, and which would forever 

 have escaped man s thoughts; from the discovery of forms, 

 therefore, results genuine theory and free practice. 



IV. Although there is a most intimate connection, and 

 almost an identity between the ways of human power 

 and human knowledge, yet, on account of the pernicious 

 and inveterate habit of dwelling upon abstractions, it is 

 by far the safest method to commence and build up the 

 sciences from those foundations which bear a relation to 

 the practical division, and to let them mark out and limit 

 the theoretical. We must consider, therefore, what pre 

 cepts, or what direction or guide, a person would most 

 desire, in order to generate and superinduce any nature 

 upon a given body: and this not in abstruse, but in the 

 plainest language. 



For instance, if a person should wish to superinduce the 

 yellow color of gold upon silver, or an additional weight 

 (observing always the laws of matter) or transparency on an 

 opaque stone, or tenacity in glass, or vegetation on a sub 

 stance which is not vegetable, we must (I say) consider what 

 species of precept or guide this person would prefer. And, 

 first, he will doubtless be anxious to be shown some method 

 that will neither fail in effect, nor deceive him in the trial of 



