Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature Part 2

CAP. 7.

THAT THE PRETENDED SUCCESSION OF WITS HATH BEEN EVIL PLACED, FOR ASMUCH AS AFTER VARIETY OF SECTS AND OPINIONS, THE MOST POPULAR AND NOT THE TRUEST PREVAILETH AND WEARETH OUT THE REST; BEING THE 7TH CHAPTER; A FRAGMENT.

It is sensible to think that when men enter first into search and inquiry, according to the several frames and compositions of their understanding they light upon different conceits, and so all opinions and doubts are beaten over, and then men having made a taste of all wax weary of variety, and so reject the worst and hold themselves to the best, either some one if it be eminent, or some two or three if they be in some equality, which afterwards are received and carried on, and the rest extinct.

But truth is contrary, and that time is like a river which carrieth down things which are light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is sad and weighty. For howsoever governments have several forms, sometimes one governing, sometimes few, sometimes the mult.i.tude; yet the state of knowledge is ever a DEMOCRATIE, and that prevaileth which is most agreeable to the senses and conceits of people. As for example there is no great doubt but he that did put the beginnings of things to be SOLID, VOID, AND MOTION TO THE CENTRE, was in better earnest than he that put MATTER, FORM, AND SHIFT; or he that put the MIND, MOTION, AND MATTER. For no man shall enter into inquisition of nature, but shall pa.s.s by that opinion of Democritus, whereas he shall never come near the other two opinions, but leave them aloof for the schools and table-talk. Yet those of Aristotle and Plato, because they be both agreeable to popular sense, and the one was uttered with subtilty and the spirit of contradiction, and the other with a stile of ornament and majesty, did hold out, and the other gave place, etc.

CAP. 8.

OF THE IMPEDIMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE IN HANDLING IT BY PARTS, AND IN SLIPPING OFF PARTICULAR SCIENCES FROM THE ROOT AND STOCK OF UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE, BEING THE 8TH CHAPTER, THE WHOLE CHAPTER.

Cicero, the orator, willing to magnify his own profession, and thereupon spending many words to maintain that eloquence was not a shop of good words and elegancies but a treasury and receipt of all knowledges, so far forth as may appertain to the handling and moving of the minds and affections of men by speech, maketh great complaint of the school of Socrates; that whereas before his time the same professors of wisdom in Greece did pretend to teach an universal SAPIENCE and knowledge both of matter and words, Socrates divorced them and withdrew philosophy and left rhetoric to itself, which by that dest.i.tution became but a barren and unn.o.ble science. And in particular sciences we see that if men fall to subdivide their labours, as to be an oculist in physic, or to be perfect in some one t.i.tle of the law, or the like, they may prove ready and subtile, but not deep or sufficient, no not in that subject which they do particularly attend, because of that consent which it hath with the rest. And it is a matter of common discourse of the chain of sciences how they are linked together, insomuch as the Grecians, who had terms at will, have fitted it of a name of CIRCLE LEARNING.

Nevertheless I that hold it for a great impediment towards the advancement and further invention of knowledge, that particular arts and sciences have been disincorporated from general knowledge, do not understand one and the same thing which Cicero's discourse and the note and conceit of the Grecians in their word CIRCLE LEARNING do intend. For I mean not that use which one science hath of another for ornament or help in practice, as the orator hath of knowledge of affections for moving, or as military science may have use of geometry for fortifications; but I mean it directly of that use by way of supply of light and information which the particulars and instances of one science do yield and present for the framing or correcting of the axioms of another science in their very truth and notion. And therefore that example of OCULISTS and t.i.tLE LAWYERS doth come nearer my conceit than the other two; for sciences distinguished have a dependence upon universal knowledge to be augmented and rectified by the superior light thereof, as well as the parts and members of a science have upon the MAXIMS of the same science, and the mutual light and consent which one part receiveth of another. And therefore the opinion of Copernicus in astronomy, which astronomy itself cannot correct because it is not repugnant to any of the appearances, yet natural philosophy doth correct. On the other side if some of the ancient philosophers had been perfect in the observations of astronomy, and had called them to counsel when they made their principles and first axioms, they would never have divided their philosophy as the Cosmographers do their descriptions by globes, making one philosophy for heaven and another for under heaven, as in effect they do.

So if the moral philosophers that have spent such an infinite quant.i.ty of debate touching Good and the highest good, had cast their eye abroad upon nature and beheld the appet.i.te that is in all things to receive and to give; the one motion affecting preservation and the other multiplication; which appet.i.tes are most evidently seen in living creatures in the pleasure of nourishment and generation; and in man do make the aptest and most natural division of all his desires, being either of sense of pleasure or sense of power; and in the universal frame of the world are figured, the one in the beams of heaven which issue forth, and the other in the lap of the earth which takes in: and again if they had observed the motion of congruity or situation of the parts in respect of the whole, evident in so many particulars; and lastly if they had considered the motion (familiar in attraction of things) to approach to that which is higher in the same kind; when by these observations so easy and concurring in natural philosophy, they should have found out this quaternion of good, in enjoying or fruition, effecting or operation, consenting or proportion, and approach or a.s.sumption; they would have saved and abridged much of their long and wandering discourses of pleasure, virtue, duty, and religion. So likewise in this same logic and rhetoric, or arts of argument and grace of speech, if the great masters of them would but have gone a form lower, and looked but into the observations of Grammar concerning the kinds of words, their derivations, deflexions, and syntax; specially enriching the same with the helps of several languages, with their differing proprieties of words, phrases, and tropes; they might have found out more and better footsteps of common reason, help of disputation, and advantages of cavillation, than many of these which they have propounded. So again a man should be thought to dally, if he did note how the figures of rhetoric and music are many of them the same.

The repet.i.tions and traductions in speech and the reports and hauntings of sounds in music are the very same things. Plutarch hath almost made a book of the Lacedaemonian kind of jesting, which joined ever pleasure with distaste. SIR, (saith a man of art to Philip king of Macedon when he controlled him in his faculty,) G.o.d FORBID YOUR FORTUNE SHOULD BE SUCH AS TO KNOW THESE THINGS BETTER THAN I. In taxing his ignorance in his art he represented to him the perpetual greatness of his fortune, leaving him no vacant time for so mean a skill. Now in music it is one of the ordinariest flowers to fall from a discord or hard tune upon a sweet accord. The figure that Cicero and the rest commend as one of the best points of elegancy, which is the fine checking of expectation, is no less well known to the musicians when they have a special grace in flying the close or cadence. And these are no allusions but direct communities, the same delights of the mind being to be found not only in music, rhetoric, but in moral philosophy, policy, and other knowledges, and that obscure in the one, which is more apparent in the other, yea and that discovered in the one which is not found at all in the other, and so one science greatly aiding to the invention and augmentation of another. And therefore without this intercourse the axioms of sciences will fall out to be neither full nor true; but will be such opinions as Aristotle in some places doth wisely censure, when he saith THESE ARE THE OPINIONS OF PERSONS THAT HAVE RESPECT BUT TO A FEW THINGS. So then we see that this note leadeth us to an administration of knowledge in some such order and policy as the king of Spain in regard of his great dominions useth in state; who though he hath particular councils for several countries and affairs, yet hath one council of State or last resort, that receiveth the advertis.e.m.e.nts and certificates from all the rest. Hitherto of the diversion, succession, and conference of wits.

CAP. 9.

THAT THE END AND SCOPE OF KNOWLEDGE HATH BEEN GENERALLY MISTAKEN, AND THAT MEN WERE NEVER WELL ADVISED WHAT IT WAS THEY SOUGHT; BEING THE 9TH CHAPTER, WHEREOF A FRAGMENT (WHICH IS THE END OF THE SAME CHAPTER) IS BEFORE.

It appeareth then how rarely the wits and labours of men have been converted to the severe and original inquisition of knowledge; and in those who have pretended, what hurt hath been done by the affectation of professors and the distraction of such as were no professors; and how there was never in effect any conjunction or combination of wits in the first and inducing search, but that every man wrought apart, and would either have his own way or else would go no further than his guide, having in the one case the honour of a first, and in the other the ease of a second; and lastly how in the descent and continuance of wits and labours the succession hath been in the most popular and weak opinions, like unto the weakest natures which many times have most children, and in them also the condition of succession hath been rather to defend and to adorn than to add; and if to add, yet that addition to be rather a refining of a part than an increase of the whole. But the impediments of time and accidents, though they have wrought a general indisposition, yet are they not so peremptory and binding as the internal impediments and clouds in the mind and spirit of man, whereof it now followeth to speak.

The Scripture speaking of the worst sort of error saith, ERRARE FECIT COS IN INVIO ET NON IN VIA. For a man may wander in the way, by rounding up and down. But if men have failed in their very direction and address that error will never by good fortune correct itself.

Now it hath fared with men in their contemplations as Seneca saith it fareth with them in their actions, DE PARTIBUS VITAE QUISQUE DELIBERAT, DE SUMMA NEMO. A course very ordinary with men who receive for the most part their final ends from the inclination of their nature, or from common example and opinion, never questioning or examining them, nor reducing them to any clear certainty; and use only to call themselves to account and deliberation touching the means and second ends, and thereby set themselves in the right way to the wrong place. So likewise upon the natural curiosity and desire to know, they have put themselves in way without foresight or consideration of their journey's end.

For I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself, and not for benefit or ostentation or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely satisfaction (which men call truth) and not operation. For as in the courts and services of princes and states it is a much easier matter to give satisfaction than to do the business; so in the inquiring of causes and reasons it is much easier to find out such causes as will satisfy the mind of man and quiet objections, than such causes as will direct him and give him light to new experiences and inventions. And this did Celsus note wisely and truly, how that the causes which are in use and whereof the knowledges now received do consist, were in time minors and subsequents to the knowledge of the particulars out of which they were induced and collected; and that it was not the light of those causes which discovered particulars, but only the particulars being first found, men did fall on glossing and discoursing of the causes; which is the reason why the learning that now is hath the curse of barrenness, and is courtesanlike, for pleasure, and not for fruit.

Nay to compare it rightly, the strange fiction of the poets of the transformation of Scylla seemeth to be a lively emblem of this philosophy and knowledge; a fair woman upwards in the parts of show, but when you come to the parts of use and generation, Barking Monsters; for no better are the endless distorted questions, which ever have been, and of necessity must be, the end and womb of such knowledge.

But yet nevertheless here I may be mistaken, by reason of some which have much in their pen the referring sciences to action and the use of man, which mean quite another matter than I do. For they mean a contriving of directions and precepts for readiness of practice, which I discommend not, so it be not occasion that some quant.i.ty of the science be lost; for else it will be such a piece of husbandry as to put away a manor lying somewhat scattered, to buy in a close that lieth handsomely about a dwelling. But my intention contrariwise is to increase and multiply the revenues and possessions of man, and not to trim up only or order with conveniency the grounds whereof he is already stated. Wherefore the better to make myself understood that I mean nothing less than words, and directly to demonstrate the point which we are now upon, that is, what is the true end, scope, or office of knowledge, which I have set down to consist not in any plausible, delectable, reverend, or admired discourse, or any satisfactory arguments, but in effecting and working, and in discovery of particulars not revealed before for the better endowment and help of man's life; I have thought good to make as it were a Kalendar or Inventory of the wealth, furniture, or means of man according to his present estate, as far as it is known; which I do not to shew any universality of sense or knowledge, and much less to make a satire of reprehension in respect of wants and errors, but partly because cogitations new had need of some grossness and inculcation to make them perceived; and chiefly to the end that for the time to come (upon the account and state now made and cast up) it may appear what increase this new manner of use and administration of the stock (if it be once planted) shall bring with it hereafter; and for the time present (in case I should be prevented by death to propound and reveal this new light as I purpose) yet I may at the least give some awaking note both of the wants in man's present condition and the nature of the supplies to be wished; though for mine own part neither do I much build upon my present antic.i.p.ations, neither do I think ourselves yet learned or wise enough to wish reasonably: for as it asks some knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it asketh some sense to make a wish not absurd.

CAP. 10.

THE INVENTORY, OR AN ENUMERATION AND VIEW OF INVENTIONS ALREADY DISCOVERED AND IN USE, TOGETHER WITH A NOTE OF THE WANTS AND THE NATURE OF THE SUPPLIES, BEING THE 10TH CHAPTER; AND THIS A SMALL FRAGMENT THEREOF, BEING THE PREFACE TO THE INVENTORY.

The plainest method and most directly pertinent to this intention, will be to make distribution of sciences, arts, inventions, works, and their portions, according to the use and tribute which they yield and render to the conditions of man's life, and under those several uses, being as several offices of provisions, to charge and tax what may be reasonably exacted or demanded; not guiding ourselves neither by the poverty of experiences and probations, nor according to the vanity of credulous imaginations; and then upon those charges and taxations to distinguish and present, as it were in several columns, what is extant and already found, and what is defective and further to be provided. Of which provisions, because in many of them after the manner of slothful and faulty officers and accomptants it will be returned (by way of excuse) that no such are to be had, it will be fit to give some light of the nature of the supplies, whereby it will evidently appear that they are to be compa.s.sed and procured. And yet nevertheless on the other side again it will be as fit to check and control the vain and void a.s.signations and gifts whereby certain ignorant, extravagant, and abusing wits have pretended to indue the state of man with wonders, differing as much from truth in nature as Caesar's Commentaries differeth from the acts of King Arthur or Huon of Bourdeaux in story. For it is true that Caesar did greater things than those idle wits had the audacity to feign their supposed worthies to have done; but he did them not in that monstrous and fabulous manner.

CAP. 11.

THE CHAPTER IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE INVENTORY; BEING THE 11TH IN ORDER; A PART THEREOF.

It appeareth then what is now in proposition not by general circ.u.mlocution but by particular note. No former philosophy varied in terms or method; no new PLACET or speculation upon particulars already known; no referring to action by any manual of practice; but the revealing and discovering of new inventions and operations. This to be done without the errors and conjectures of art, or the length or difficulties of experience; the nature and kinds of which inventions have been described as they could be discovered; for your eye cannot pa.s.s one kenning without further sailing; only we have stood upon the best advantages of the notions received, as upon a mount, to shew the knowledges adjacent and confining. If therefore the true end of knowledge not propounded hath bred large error, the best and perfectest condition of the same end not perceived will cause some declination. For when the b.u.t.t is set up men need not rove, but except the white be placed men cannot level. This perfection we mean not in the worth of the effect, but in the nature of the direction; for our purpose is not to stir up men's hopes, but to guide their travels. The fullness of direction to work and produce any effect consisteth in two conditions, certainty and liberty. Certainty is when the direction is not only true for the most part, but infallible. Liberty is when the direction is not restrained to some definite means, but comprehendeth all the means and ways possible; for the poet saith well SAPIENTIBUS UNDIQUE LATAE SUNT VIAE, and where there is the greatest plurality of change, there is the greatest singularity of choice. Besides as a conjectural direction maketh a casual effect, so a particular and restrained direction is no less casual than an uncertain. For those particular means whereunto it is tied may be out of your power or may be accompanied with an overvalue of prejudice; and so if for want of certainty in direction you are frustrated in success, for want of variety in direction you are stopped in attempt. If therefore your direction be certain, it must refer you and point you to somewhat which, if it be present, the effect you seek will of necessity follow, else may you perform and not obtain. If it be free, then must it refer you to somewhat which if it be absent the effect you seek will of necessity withdraw, else may you have power and not attempt. This notion Aristotle had in light, though not in use. For the two commended rules by him set down, whereby the axioms of sciences are precepted to be made convertible, and which the latter men have not without elegancy surnamed the one the rule of truth because it preventeth deceit, the other the rule of prudence because it freeth election, are the same thing in speculation and affirmation which we now observe. An example will make my meaning attained, and yet percase make it thought that they attained it not. Let the effect to be produced be Whiteness; let the first direction be that if air and water be intermingled or broken in small portions together, whiteness will ensue, as in snow, in the breaking of the waves of the sea and rivers, and the like. This direction is certain, but very particular and restrained, being tied but to air and water. Let the second direction be, that if air be mingled as before with any transparent body, such nevertheless as is uncoloured and more grossly transparent than air itself, that then etc. as gla.s.s or crystal, being beaten to fine powder, by the interposition of the air becometh white; the white of an egg being clear of itself, receiving air by agitation becometh white, receiving air by concoction becometh white; here you are freed from water, and advanced to a clear body, and still tied to air. Let the third direction exclude or remove the restraint of an uncoloured body, as in amber, sapphires, etc. which beaten to fine powder become white; in wine and beer, which brought to froth become white. Let the fourth direction exclude the restraint of a body more grossly transparent than air, as in flame, being a body compounded between air and a finer substance than air; which flame if it were not for the smoke, which is the third substance that incorporateth itself and dyeth the flame, would be more perfect white. In all these four directions air still beareth a part. Let the fifth direction then be, that if any bodies, both transparent but in an unequal degree, be mingled as before, whiteness will follow; as oil and water beaten to an ointment, though by settling the air which gathereth in the agitation be evaporate, yet remaineth white; and the powder of gla.s.s or crystal put into water, whereby the air giveth place, yet remaineth white, though not so perfect. Now are you freed from air, but still you are tied to transparent bodies. To ascend further by scale I do forbear, partly because it would draw on the example to an over-great length, but chiefly because it would open that which in this work I determine to reserve; for to pa.s.s through the whole history and observation of colours and objects visible were too long a digression; and our purpose is now to give an example of a free direction, thereby to distinguish and describe it; and not to set down a form of interpretation how to recover and attain it. But as we intend not now to reveal, so we are circ.u.mspect not to mislead; and therefore (this warning being given) returning to our purpose in hand, we admit the sixth direction to be, that all bodies or parts of bodies which are unequal equally, that is in a simple proportion, do represent whiteness; we will explain this, though we induce it not.

It is then to be understood, that absolute equality produceth transparence, inequality in simple order or proportion produceth whiteness, inequality in compound or respective order or proportion produceth all other colours, and absolute or orderless inequality produceth blackness; which diversity, if so gross a demonstration be needful, may be signified by four tables; a blank, a chequer, a fret, and a medley; whereof the fret is evident to admit great variety.

Out of this a.s.sertion are satisfied a mult.i.tude of effects and observations, as that whiteness and blackness are most incompatible with transparence; that whiteness keepeth light, and blackness stoppeth light, but neither pa.s.seth it; that whiteness or blackness are never produced in rainbows, diamonds, crystals, and the like; that white giveth no dye, and black hardly taketh dye; that whiteness seemeth to have an affinity with dryness, and blackness with moisture; that adustion causeth blackness, and calcination whiteness; that flowers are generally of fresh colours, and rarely black, etc. All which I do now mention confusedly by way of derivation and not by way of induction. This sixth direction, which I have thus explained, is of good and competent liberty for whiteness fixed and inherent, but not for whiteness fantastical or appearing, as shall be afterwards touched. But first do you need a reduction back to certainty or verity; for it is not all position or contexture of unequal bodies that will produce colour; for AQUA FORTIS, oil of VITRIOL, etc. more manifestly, and many other substances more obscurely, do consist of very unequal parts, which yet are transparent and clear. Therefore the reduction must be, that the bodies or parts of bodies so intermingled as before be of a certain grossness or magnitude; for the unequalities which move the sight must have a further dimension and quant.i.ty than those which operate many other effects. Some few grains of saffron will give a tincture to a tun of water; but so many grains of civet will give a perfume to a whole chamber of air. And therefore when Democritus (from whom Epicurus did borrow it) held that the position of the solid portions was the cause of colours, yet in the very truth of his a.s.sertion he should have added, that the portions are required to be of some magnitude. And this is one cause why colours have little inwardness and necessitude with the nature and proprieties of things, those things resembling in colour which otherwise differ most, as salt and sugar, and contrariwise differing in colour which otherwise resemble most, as the white and blue violets, and the several veins of one agate or marble, by reason that other virtues consist in more subtile proportions than colours do; and yet are there virtues and natures which require a grosser magnitude than colours, as well as scents and divers other require a more subtile; for as the portion of a body will give forth scent which is too small to be seen, so the portion of a body will shew colours which is too small to be endued with weight; and therefore one of the prophets with great elegancy describing how all creatures carry no proportion towards G.o.d the creator, saith, THAT ALL THE NATIONS IN RESPECT OF HIM ARE LIKE THE DUST UPON THE BALANCE, which is a thing appeareth but weigheth not. But to return, there resteth a further freeing of this sixth direction; for the clearness of a river or stream sheweth white at a distance, and crystalline gla.s.ses deliver the face or any other object falsified in whiteness, and long beholding the snow to a weak eye giveth an impression of azure rather than of whiteness. So as for whiteness in apparition only and representation by the qualifying of the light, altering the INTERMEDIUM, or affecting the eye itself, it reacheth not. But you must free your direction to the producing of such an incidence, impression, or operation, as may cause a precise and determinate pa.s.sion of the eye; a matter which is much more easy to induce than that which we have pa.s.sed through; but yet because it hath a full coherence both with that act of radiation (which hath hitherto been conceived and termed so unproperly and untruly by some an effluxion of spiritual species and by others an investing of the INTERMEDIUM with a motion which successively is conveyed to the eye) and with the act of sense, wherein I should likewise open that which I think good to withdraw, I will omit. Neither do I contend but that this motion which I call the freeing of a direction, in the received philosophies (as far as a swimming antic.i.p.ation could take hold) might be perceived and discerned; being not much other matter than that which they did not only aim at in the two rules of AXIOMS before remembered, but more nearly also in that which they term the form or formal cause, or that which they call the true difference; both which nevertheless it seemeth they propound rather as impossibilities and wishes than as things within the compa.s.s of human comprehension. For Plato casteth his burden and saith THAT HE WILL REVERE HIM AS A G.o.d, THAT CAN TRULY DIVIDE AND DEFINE; which cannot be but by true forms and differences. Wherein I join hands with him, confessing as much as yet a.s.suming to myself little; for if any man call by the strength of his ANTIc.i.p.aTIONS find out forms, I will magnify him with the foremost. But as any of them would say that if divers things which many men know by instruction and observation another knew by revelation and without those means, they would take him for somewhat supernatural and divine; so I do acknowledge that if any man can by antic.i.p.ations reach to that which a weak and inferior wit may attain to by interpretation, he cannot receive too high a t.i.tle. Nay I for my part do indeed admire to see how far some of them have proceeded by their ANTIc.i.p.aTIONS; but how? It is as I wonder at some blind men, to see what shift they make without their eye-sight; thinking with myself that if I were blind I could hardly do it. Again Aristotle's school confesseth that there is no true knowledge but by causes, no true cause but the form, no true form known except one, which they are pleased to allow; and therefore thus far their evidence standeth with us, that both hitherto there hath been nothing but a shadow of knowledge, and that we propound now that which is agreed to be worthiest to be sought, and hardest to be found. There wanteth now a part very necessary, not by way of supply but by way of caution; for as it is seen for the most part that the outward tokens and badges of excellency and perfection are more incident to things merely counterfeit than to that which is true, but for a meaner and baser sort; as a dubline is more like a perfect ruby than a spinel, and a counterfeit angel is made more like a true angel than if it were an angel coined of China gold; in like manner the direction carrieth a resemblance of a true direction in verity and liberty which indeed is no direction at all. For though your direction seem to be certain and free by pointing you to a nature that is unseparable from the nature you inquire upon, yet if it do not carry you on a degree or remove nearer to action, operation, or light to make or produce, it is but superficial and counterfeit. Wherefore to secure and warrant what is a true direction, though that general note I have given be perspicuous in itself (for a man shall soon cast with himself whether he be ever the nearer to effect and operate or no, or whether he have won but an abstract or varied notion) yet for better instruction I will deliver three particular notes of caution. The first is that the nature discovered be more original than the nature supposed, and not more secondary or of the like degree; as to make a stone bright or to make it smooth it is a good direction to say, make it even; but to make a stone even it is no good direction to say, make it bright or make it smooth; for the rule is that the disposition of any thing referring to the state of it in itself or the parts, is more original than that which is relative or transitive towards another thing. So evenness is the disposition of the stone in itself, but smooth is to the hand and bright to the eye, and yet nevertheless they all cl.u.s.ter and concur; and yet the direction is more unperfect, if it do appoint you to such a relative as is in the same kind and not in a diverse.

For in the direction to produce brightness by smoothness, although properly it win no degree, and will never teach you any new particulars before unknown; yet by way of suggestion or bringing to mind it may draw your consideration to some particulars known but not remembered; as you shall sooner remember some practical means of making smoothness, than if you had fixed your consideration only upon brightness by making reflexion, as thus, make it such as you may see your face in it, this is merely secondary, and helpeth neither by way of informing nor by way of suggestion. So if in the inquiry of whiteness you were directed to make such a colour as should be seen furthest in a dark light; here you are advanced nothing at all. For these kinds of natures are but proprieties, effects, circ.u.mstances, concurrences, or what else you shall like to call them, and not radical and formative natures towards the nature supposed. The second caution is that the nature inquired be collected by division before composition, or to speak more properly, by composition subaltern before you ascend to composition absolute, etc.

OF THE INTERNAL AND PROFOUND ERRORS AND SUPERSt.i.tIONS IN THE NATURE OF THE MIND, AND OF THE FOUR SORTS OF IDOLS OR FICTIONS WHICH OFFER THEMSELVES TO THE UNDERSTANDING IN THE INQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE; BEING THE 16TH CHAPTER, AND THIS A SMALL FRAGMENT THEREOF, BEING A PREFACE TO THE INWARD ELENCHES OF THE MIND.

The opinion of Epicurus that the G.o.ds were of human shape, was rather justly derided than seriously confuted by the other sects, demanding whether every kind of sensible creatures did not think their own figure fairest, as the horse, the bull, and the like, which found no beauty but in their own forms, as in appet.i.te of l.u.s.t appeared. And the heresy of the Anthropomorphites was ever censured for a gross conceit bred in the obscure cells of solitary monks that never looked abroad. Again the fable so well known of QUIS PINXIT LEONEM, doth set forth well that there is an error of pride and partiality, as well as of custom and familiarity. The reflexion also from gla.s.ses so usually resembled to the imagery of the mind, every man knoweth to receive error and variety both in colour, magnitude, and shape, according to the quality of the gla.s.s. But yet no use hath been made of these and many the like observations, to move men to search out and upon search to give true cautions of the native and inherent errors in the mind of man which have coloured and corrupted all his notions and impressions.

I do find therefore in this enchanted gla.s.s four Idols or false appearances of several and distinct sorts, every sort comprehending many subdivisions: the first sort, I call idols of the NATION or TRIBE; the second, idols of the PALACE; the third, idols of the CAVE; and the fourth, idols of the THEATRE, etc.

HERE FOLLOWETH AN ABRIDGMENT OF DIVERS CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST BOOK OF INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.

CAP. 12.

That in deciding and determining of the truth of knowledge, men have put themselves upon trials not competent. That antiquity and authority; common and confessed notions; the natural and yielding consent of the mind; the harmony and coherence of a knowledge in itself; the establishing of principles with the touch and reduction of other propositions unto them; inductions without instances contradictory; and the report of the senses; are none of them absolute and infallible evidence of truth, and bring no security sufficient for effects and operations. That the discovery of new works and active directions not known before, is the only trial to be accepted of; and yet not that neither, in ease where one particular giveth light to another; but where particulars induce an axiom or observation, which axiom found out discovereth and designeth new particulars. That the nature of this trial is not only upon the point, whether the knowledge be profitable or no, but even upon the point whether the knowledge be true or no; not because you may always conclude that the Axiom which discovereth new instances is true, but contrariwise you may safely conclude that if it discover not any new instance it is in vain and untrue. That by new instances are not always to be understood new recipes but new a.s.signations, and of the diversity between these two. That the subtilty of words, arguments, notions, yea of the senses themselves, is but rude and gross in comparison of the subtilty of things; and of the slothful and flattering opinions of those which pretend to honour the mind of man in withdrawing and abstracting it from particulars, and of the inducements and motives whereupon such opinions have been conceived and received.

CAP. 13.

Of the error in propounding chiefly the search of causes and productions of things concrete, which are infinite and transitory, and not of abstract natures, which are few and permanent. That these natures are as the alphabet or simple letters, whereof the variety of things consisteth; or as the colours mingled in the painter's sh.e.l.l, wherewith he is able to make infinite variety of faces or shapes. An enumeration of them according to popular note. That at the first one would conceive that in the schools by natural philosophy were meant the knowledge of the efficients of things concrete; and by metaphysic the knowledge of the forms of natures simple; which is a good and fit division of knowledge: but upon examination there is no such matter by them intended. That the little inquiry into the production of simple natures sheweth well that works were not sought; because by the former knowledge some small and superficial deflexions from the ordinary generations and productions may be found out, but the discovery of all profound and radical alteration must arise out of the latter knowledge.