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ing note, such as "it is reported," "they relate," "I have heard from a person of credit," and the like. For to add the arguments on either side would be too la borious and would certainly interrupt the writer too much. Nor is it of much consequence to the business in hand; because (as I have said in the 118th Aphorism of the first book) mistakes in experimenting, unless they abound everywhere, will be presently detected and corrected by the truth of axioms. And yet if the instance be of importance, either from its own use or because many other things may depend upon it, then certainly the name of the author should be given; and not the name merely, but it should be mentioned withal whether he took it from report, oral or written (as most of Pliny's statements are), or rather affirmed it of his own knowledge; also whether it was a thing which happened in his own time or earlier; and again whether it was a thing of which, if it really happened, there must needs have been many witnesses; and finally whether the author was a vain-speaking and light person, or sober and severe; and the like points, which bear upon the weight of the evidence. Lastly things which though certainly not true are yet current and much in men's mouths, having either through neglect or from the use of them in similitudes prevailed now for many ages, (as that the diamond binds the magnet, garlic weakens it; that amber attracts everything except basil; and other things of that kind) these it will not be enough to reject silently; they must be in express words proscribed, that the sciences may be no more troubled with them.

Besides, it will not be amiss, when the source of any vanity or credulity happens to present itself, to make a

stars are scattered about the sky in no order at all; so that there is not found among them either quincunx or square, or any other regular figure (howsoever the names be given of Delta, Crown, Cross, Chariot, &c.), -scarcely so much as a straight line; except perhaps in the belt and dagger of Orion.

Fifthly, that may perhaps be of some assistance to an inquirer which is the ruin and destruction of a believer; viz. a brief review, as in passage, of the opinions now received, with their varieties and sects; that they may touch and rouse the intellect, and no more.

X.

And this will be enough in the way of general precepts; which if they be diligently observed, the work of the history will at once go straight towards its object and be prevented from increasing beyond bounds. But if even as here circumscribed and limited it should appear to some poor-spirited person a vast work - let him turn to the libraries; and there among other things let him look at the bodies of civil and canonical law on one side, and at the commentaries of doctors and lawyers on the other; and see what a difference there is between the two in point of mass and volume. For we (who as faithful secretaries do but enter and set down the laws themselves of nature and nothing else) are content with brevity, and almost compelled to it by the condition of things; whereas opinions, doctrines, and speculations are without number and without end.

And whereas in the Plan of the Work I have spoken of the Cardinal Virtues in nature, and said that a history of these must also be collected and written before. we come to the work of Interpretation; I have not for

gotten this, but I reserve this part for myself; since until men have begun to be somewhat more closely intimate with nature, I cannot venture to rely very much on other people's industry in that matter.

And now should come the delineation of the particular histories. But I have at present so many other things. to do that I can only find time to subjoin a Catalogue of their titles. As soon however as I have leisure for it, I mean to draw up a set of questions on the several subjects, and to explain what points with regard to each of the histories are especially to be inquired and collected, as conducing to the end I have in view, like a kind of particular Topics. In other words, I mean (according to the practice in civil causes) in this great Plea or Suit granted by the divine favour and providence (whereby the human race seeks to recover its right over nature), to examine nature herself and the arts upon interrogatories.

CATALOGUE

OF

PARTICULAR HISTORIES

BY TITLES.

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1. History of the Heavenly Bodies; or Astronomical History.

2. History of the Configuration of the Heaven and the parts thereof towards the Earth and the parts thereof; or Cosmographical History.

3. History of Comets.

4. History of Fiery Meteors.

5. History of Lightnings, Thunderbolts, Thunders, and Coruscations.

6. History of Winds and Sudden Blasts and Undulations of the Air.

7. History of Rainbows.

8. History of Clouds, as they are seen above. 9. History of the Blue Expanse, of Twilight, of Mock-Suns, Mock-Moons, Haloes, various colours of the Sun; and of every variety in the aspect of the heavens caused by the medium. 10. History of Showers, Ordinary, Stormy, and Prodigious; also of Waterspouts (as they are called); and the like.

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