38 PREFACE TO THE 



devices which he resorted to for the purpose of over- 

 coming or avoiding them. In my preface to the 

 Tempons Partus Masculm I have endeavoured to ac- 

 count for the tone of arrogance assumed in the second 

 chapter, by supposing it to have been an experiment 

 of that kind ; and I have quoted two entries from the 

 Commentarim Solutus, as suggesting a possible and I 

 think not improbable explanation of it. I shall now 

 quote, in .connexion with this much improved edition 

 of the same argument, the entire page in which one 

 of those entries occurs. The date is July 26, 1608 ; 

 and the notes run thus : 



" Ordinary discourse of plus ultra in sciences, as 

 well the intellectual globe as the material, illustrated 

 by discovery in our age. 



" Discoursing scornfully of the philosophy of the 

 Grecians, with some better respect to the ^Egyptians, 

 Persians, Caldees, and the utmost antiquity, and the 

 mysteries of the poets. 



" Comparing the case with that which Livy sayeth 

 of Alexander, Nil aliud quam bene ausus vana con- 

 temn ere. 



" Qu. of an oration ad filios ; delightful, sublime^ 

 and mixed with elegancy, affection, novelty of conceit 

 and yet sensible, and superstition. 



" To consider what opinions are fit to nourish tan- 

 quam ansae, and so to grift the new upon the old, ut 

 religiones solent. 



" Ordinary course of incompetency of reason for 

 natural philosophy and invention of works, a pretty 

 device to buy and sell with : Aditus non nisi sub per- 

 sona infantis." 



Now if the tenor of these notes, especially the fourth, 



