BOOK L] APHORISM! 443 



most diligently ; but we declare it necessary to destroy com 

 pletely the vain little, and as it were, apish imitations oi the world, 

 which have been formed in various systems of philosophy by 

 men s fancies. Let men learn (as we have said above), the 

 difference that exists between the idols of the human mind and 

 the ideas of the divine mind. The former are mere arbitrary 

 abstractions ; the latter the true marks of the Creator on his 

 creatures, as they are imprinted on, and defined in matter, by 

 true and exquisite touches. Truth, therefore, and utility, are 

 here perfectly identical, and the effects are of more value as 

 pledges of truth than from the benefit they confer on men. 



CXXV. Others may object that we are only doing that which 

 has already been done, and that the ancients followed the same 

 course as ourselves. They may imagine, therefore, that, after 

 all this stir and exertion, we shall at last arrive at some of those 

 systems that prevailed among the ancients : for that they, too, 

 when commencing their meditations, laid up a great store of 

 instances and particulars, and digested them under topics and 

 titles in their common-place books, and so worked out their 

 systems and arts, and then decided upon what they discovered, 

 and related now and then some examples to confirm and throw 

 light upon their doctrine; but thought it superfluous and trouble 

 some to publish their notes, minutes, and common-places, and 

 therefore followed the example of builders who remove the 

 scaffolding and ladders when the building is finished. Nor can 

 we indeed believe the case to have been otherwise. But to any 

 one, not entirely forgetful of our previous observations, it will 

 be easy to answer this objection or rather scruple ; for we allow 

 that the ancients had a particular form of investigation and dis 

 covery, and their writings show it. But it was of such a nature, 

 that they immediately flew from a few instances and particulars 

 (after adding some common notions, and a few generally received 

 opinions most in vogue) to the most general conclusions or the 

 principles of the sciences, and then by their intermediate propo 

 sitions deduced their inferior conclusions, and tried them by the 

 test of the immoveable and settled truth of the first, and so con 

 structed their art. Lastly, if some new particulars and instances 

 were brought forward, which contradicted their dogmas, they 

 either with great subtilty reduced them to one system, by dis 

 tinctions or explanations of their own rules, or got rid of them 

 clumsily as exceptions, labouring most pertinaciously in the mean 

 time to accommodate the causes of such as were not contradictory 

 to their own principles. Their natural history and their expe 

 rience were both far from being what they ought to have been, 

 and their flying off to generalities ruined everything. 



CXXVI. Another objection will be made against u, that w 



