ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 215 



might rise for her to drink? Who taught the bee to sail 

 through the vast ocean of air, to distant fields, and find 

 the way back to her hive ? 10 Who taught the ant to gnaw 

 every grain of corn that she hoards, to prevent its sprout 

 ing? And if we observe in Virgil the word extundere, 

 which implies difficulty, and the word paulatim, which im 

 ports slowness, this brings us back to the case of the Egyp 

 tian gods ; since men have hitherto made little use of their 

 rational faculties, and none at all of art, in the investigation 

 of things. 



And this assertion, if carefully attended to, is proved 

 from the form of logical induction, for finding and examin 

 ing the principles of the sciences; which form being abso 

 lutely defective and insufficient, is so far from perfecting 

 nature, that it perverts and distorts her. For whoever at 

 tentively observes how the ethereal dew of the sciences, 

 like that of which the poet speaks, 



&quot;Aerii mellis coelestia dona,&quot; n 



is gathered (the sciences being extracted from particular 

 examples, whether natural or artificial, as from so many 

 flowers), will find that the mind of its own natural motion 

 makes a better induction than that described by logicians. 

 From a bare enumeration of particulars in the logical man 

 ner, where there is no contradictory instance, follows a false 

 conclusion ; nor does such an induction infer anything more 

 than probable conjecture. For who will undertake, when 

 the particulars of a man s own knowledge or memory appear 

 only on one side, that something directly opposite shall not 

 lie concealed on the other ? as if Samuel should have taken 

 up with the sons of Jesse brought before him, and not have 

 sought David, who was in the field. And to say the truth, 

 as this form of induction is so gross and stupid, it might 

 seem incredible that such acute and subtile geniuses as 

 have been exercised this way, could ever have obtruded 



10 Pliny s Natural History. &quot; Virgil, Georg. iv. 1. 



