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stances; or by elevating the understanding, and leading it to 

 general and common natures, and that either immediately, as 

 in the clandestine and singular instances, and those of alliance ; 

 or very nearly so, as in the constitutive ; or still less so, as in 

 the similar instances ; or by correcting the understanding of its 

 habits, as in the deviating instances ; or by leading to the grand 

 form or fabric of the universe, as in the bordering instances ; or 

 by guarding it from false forms and causes, as in those of the 

 cross and of divorce. With regard to practice, they either point 

 it out, or measure, or elevate it. They point it out, either by 

 showing where we must commence in order not to repeat the 

 labors of others, as in the instances of power ; or by inducing 

 us to aspire to that which may be possible, as in the suggesting 

 instances ; the four mathematical instances measure it. The 

 generally useful and the magical elevate it. 



Again, out of these twenty-seven instances, some must be 

 collected immediately, without waiting for a particular investi- 

 gation of properties. Such are the similar, singular, deviating, 

 and bordering instances, those of power, and of the gate, and 

 suggesting, generally useful, and magical instances ; for these 

 either assist and cure the understanding and senses, or furnish 

 our general practice. The remainder are to be collected when 

 we finish our synoptical tables for the work of the interpreter, 

 upon any particular nature ; for these instances, honored and 

 gifted with such prerogatives, are like the soul amid the vulgar 

 crowd of instances, and (as we from the first observed) a few of 

 them are worth a multitude of the others. When, therefore, we 

 are forming our tables they must be searched out with the 

 greatest zeal, and placed in the table. And, since mention must 

 be made of them in what follows, a treatise upon their nature 

 has necessarily been prefixed. We must next, however, proceed 

 to the supports and corrections of induction, and thence to con- 

 cretes, the latent process, and latent conformations, and the 

 other matters, which we have enumerated in their order in the 

 twenty-first aphorism, in order that, like good and faithful 

 guardians, we may yield up their fortune to mankind upon the 

 emancipation and majority of their understanding; from which 

 must necessarily follow an improvement of their estate, and an 

 increase of their power over nature. For man, by the fall, lost 

 at once his state of innocence, and his empire over creation, 

 both of which can be partially recovered even in this life, the 

 first by religion and faith, the second by the arts and sciences. 

 For creation did not become entirely and utterly rebellious 

 by the curse, but in consequence of the Divine decree, " in the 

 sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," she is compelled by 

 our labors (not assuredly by our disputes or magical cere- 

 monies), at length, to afford mankind in some degree his bread, 

 that is to say, to supply man's daily wants. 



