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time and of the world was confined and meagre, which is one 

 of the worst evils for those who rely entirely on experience 

 they had not a thousand years of history worthy of that name, 

 but mere fables and ancient traditions ; they were acquainted 

 with but a small portion of the regions and countries of the 

 world, for they indiscriminately called all nations situated far 

 towards the north Scythians, all those to the west Celts ; they 

 knew nothing of Africa but the nearest part of Ethiopia, or of 

 Asia beyond the Ganges, and had not even heard any sure and 

 clear tradition of the regions of the New World. Besides, a 

 vast number of climates and zones, in which innumerable na- 

 tions live and breathe, were pronounced by them to be unin- 

 habitable ; nay, the travels of Democritus, Plato, and Pythago- 

 ras, which were not extensive, but rather mere excursions from 

 home, were considered as something vast. But in our times 

 many parts of the New World, and every extremity of the Old 

 are well known, and the mass of experiments has been infinitely 

 increased ; wherefore, if external signs were to be taken from 

 the time of the nativity or procreation (as in astrology), nothing 

 extraordinary could be predicted of these early systems of 

 philosophy. 



73. Of all signs there is none more certain or worthy than 

 that of the fruits produced, for the fruits and effects are the 

 sureties and vouchers, as it were, for the truth of philosophy. 

 Now, from the systems of the Greeks and their subordinate 

 divisions in particular branches of the sciences during so long 

 a period, scarcely one single experiment can be culled that has 

 a tendency to elevate or assist mankind, and can be fairly set 

 down to the speculations and doctrines of their philosophy. 

 Celsus candidly and wisely confesses as much, when he ob- 

 serves that experiments were first discovered in medicine, and 

 that men afterwards built their philosophical systems upon 

 them, and searched for and assigned causes, instead of the in- 

 verse method of discovering and deriving experiments from 

 philosophy and the knowledge of causes ; it is not, therefore, 

 wonderful that the Egyptians (who bestowed divinity and 

 sacred honors on the authors of new inventions) should have 

 consecrated more images of brutes than of men, for the brutes 

 by their natural instinct made many discoveries, whilst men 

 derived but few from discussion and the conclusions of reason. 



The industry of the alchemists has produced some effect, by 

 chance, however, and casualty, or from varying their experi- 

 ments (as mechanics also do), and not from any regular art or 

 theory, the theory they have imagined rather tending to disturb 

 than to assist experiment. Those, too, who have occupied 

 themselves with natural magic (as they term it) have made but 

 few discoveries, and those of small import, and bordering on 



