440 NOVUM oncAi^UM. [book t 



Fuc]i subjects are no less worthy of admission intc natural history 

 than the most magnificent and costly ; nor do they at all pollute 

 natural history, for the sun enters alike the palace and the privy, 

 and is not thereby polluted. We neither dedicate nor raise a 

 capitol or pyramid to the pride of man, but rear a holy temple 

 in his mind , on the model of the universe, whJcli model tKerpftFe" 

 we mutate. For that which is deserving of existence is deserv- 

 ing of knowledge, the image of existence. Now the mean and 

 splendid alike exist. ^a.j, as the finest odours are sometimes 

 produced from putrid matter (such as musk and civet), so does 

 valuable light and information emanate from mean and sordid 

 instances. But we have already said too much, for such fasti- 

 dious feelinjis are childish and effeminate. 



CXXI. The next point requires a more accurate consideration, 

 namely, that many parts of our history will appear to the vulgar, 

 or even any mind accustomed to the present state of things, 

 fantastically and uselessly refined. Hence, we have in regard 

 to this matter said from the first, and must again repeat, that 

 we look for experiments that shall afford light rather than profit, 

 imitating the divine creation, which, as we have often observed, 

 only produced light on the first day, and assigned that whole day 

 to its creation, without adding any material work. 



If any one, then, imagine such matters to be of no use, he 

 might equally suppose light to be of no use, because it is neither 

 solid nor material. For, in fact, the knowledge of simple 

 natures, when sufficiently investigated and defined, resembles 

 light, which, though of no great use in itself, affords access to 

 the general mysteries of effects, and with a peculiar power com- 

 prehends and draws with it whole bands and troops of effects, 

 and the sources of the most valuable axioms. So also the 

 elements of letters have of themselves separately no meaning, 

 and are of no use, yet are they, as it were, the original matter 

 in the composition and preparation of speech. The seeds of sub- 

 stances, whose effect is powerful, are of no use except in their 

 growth, and the scattered rays of light itself avail not unless 

 collected. 



But if speculative subtilties give offence, what must we say of 

 the scholastic philosophers who indulged in them to such excess r 

 And those subtilties were wasted on words, or, at least, common 

 notions (which is the same thing), not on things or nature, and 

 alike unproductive of benefit in their origin and their con- 

 sequences : in no way resembling ours, which are at present use- 

 less, but in their consequences of infinite benefit. Let men be 

 assured that all subtle disputes and discursive efforts of the 

 mind are late and preposterous, when they are introduced sub- 

 sequently to the discoverj of axiomi, and that their true, or, at 



