TO THE READER Ixxxix 



substantial in its place : They not only take down the old, 

 reject the useless and decay 'd ; but sever such ^Materials as 

 are solid, and will serve again ; bring new-ones in, prepare 

 and frame a {Model suitable to so magnificent a "Design : This 

 Solomon did in order to the building of the Material Temple-, 

 and this is here to be pursued in the Intellectual : Nay, here 

 was abundance of 'Cubbish to be clear'd, that the *Area might 

 be free ; and then was the Foundation to be deeply searched, 

 the Materials accurately examined, squared, and adjusted, 

 before it could be laid : Nor was this the Labour of a Few ; 

 less than a much longer time, more Cost and Encouragement 

 than any which the Society has yet met withal, could in 

 reason be sufficient effectually to go through so chargeable 

 a Work, and highly necessary. 



A long time it was they had been surveying the "Decays, 

 of what was ready now to drop in pieces, whatever shew 

 the out-side made with a noise of Elements and Qualities, 

 Occult and Evident ; abhorrence of Vacuum, Sympathies, An- 

 tipathies; Substantial Forms, and Trims matter courting Form\ 

 Epicycles, 'Ptolemcean Hypotheses, magisterial 'Definitions, pe- 

 remptory ^Maximes, Speculative, and "Positive 'Doctrines, and 

 alti-sonant "Phrases, with a thousand other precarious and 

 unintelligible potions, &C. all which they have been turning 

 over, to see if they could find any thing of sincere and useful 

 among this "Pedantick "Rubbish, but all in vain ; here was 

 nothing material, nothing of moment ^Mathematical, or 

 ^Mechanical, and which had not been miserably sophisticated, 

 on which to lay the stress, ; nothing in a manner whereby 

 any farther "Progress could be made, for the raising and 

 ennobling the "Dignity of Mankind in the Sublimest Operations 

 of the "Rational Faculty, by clearing the Obscurities, and healing 

 the "Defects of most of the "Phisiological Hypotheses, repugnant, 

 as they hitherto seemed to be, to the Trinciples of real 

 knowledge and Experience. 



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