494 WOVUM OR&ANUM. [feQOK It. 



man s present industry in the investigation and compilation of 

 natural history be entirely changed, and directed to the reverse 

 of the present system. For it has hitherto been active and 

 curious in noting the variety of things, and explaining tho 

 accurate differences of animals, vegetables, and minerals, most 

 of which are the mere sport of nature, rather than of any rea 

 utility as concerns the sciences. Pursuits of this nature are 

 certainly agreeable, and sometimes of practical advantage, but 

 contribute little or nothing to the thorough investigation ol 

 nature. Our labour must therefore be directed towards in 

 quiring into and observing resemblances and analogies, both in 

 the whole and its parts, for they unite nature, and lay the foun 

 dation of the sciences. 



Here, however, a severe and rigorous caution must be observed, 

 that we only consider as similar and proportionate instances, 

 those which (as we first observed) point out physical resem- 

 blances ; that is, real and substantial resemblances, deeply 

 founded in nature, and not casual and superficial, much less 

 superstitious or curious ; such as those which are constantly put 

 forward by the writers on natural magic (the most idle of men, 

 and who are scarcely fit to be named in connection with such 

 serious matters as we now treat of), who, with much vanity and 

 folty, describe, and sometimes too, invent, unmeaning resem 

 blances and sympathies. 



But leaving such to themselves, similar instances are not to 

 be neglected, in the greater portions of the world s conformation; 

 such as Africa and the Peruvian continent, which reaches to the 

 Straits of Magellan ; both of which possess a similar isthmus 

 and similar capes, a circumstance not to be attributed to mere 

 accident. 



Again, the new and old world are both of them broad and 

 expanded towards the north, and narrow and pointed towards 

 the south. 



Again, we have very remarkable similar instances in the in 

 tense cold, towards the middle regions (as it is termed) of tho 

 air, and the violent {ires which are often found to burst from 

 subterraneous spots, the similarity consisting in both being ends 

 and extremes ; the extreme of the nature of cold, for instance, is 

 towards the boundary of heaven, and that of the nature of heat 

 towards the centre of the earth, by a similar species of opposi 

 tion or rejection of the contrary nature. 



Lastly, in the axioms of the sciences, there is a similarity of 

 instances worthy of observation. Thus the rhetorical trope 

 which is called surprise, is similar to that of music termed th* 

 declining of a cadence. Again, the mathematical postulate, 

 that things which are equal to the same are equal to one another, 

 u similar to the form of tke sylld ism in logic, which unitei 



