sunshine so long as things go well, and as soon as they meet with any storm or cloud, they leave trade, and go back to shopkeeping. Whereas the old company were beaten traders, and having no other means of living but that trade, were fain to ride out all accidents and difficulties, which (being men of great ability) they were well able to do. Secondly, These young men being the major part, and having a kind of dependence upon Alderman Cockaine, they carry things by plurality of voices. And yet those few of the old company which are amongst them do drive almost three parts of the trade; and it is impossible things should go well, where one part gives the vote, and the other doth the work; so that the execution of all things lies chiefly upon them that never consented, which is merely motus violentus, and cannot last.

Thirdly, The new company make continually such new springing demands, as the state can never be secure nor trust to them, neither doth it seem that they do much trust themselves.

Fourthly, The present stand of cloth at Blackwell-hall (which is that that presseth the state

most, and is provided for but a temporary and weak remedy) is supposed would be presently at an end, upon the revivor of the old; in respect that they are able men and united amongst themselves. Fifthly, In these cases, opinio est veritate major, and the very voice and expectation of revivor of the old company will comfort the clothiers, and encourage them not to lay down their looms.

Sixthly, The very Flemings themselves (in regard of the pique they have against the new company) are like to be more pliant and tractable towards his majesty's ends and desires.

Seventhly, Considering the business hath not gone on well; his majesty must either lay the fault upon the matter itself, or upon the persons that have managed it; wherein the king shall best acquit his honour, to lay it where it is indeed; that is, upon the carriage and proceedings of the new company, which have been full of uncertainty and abuse.

Lastly, The subjects of this kingdom generally have an ill taste and conceit of the new company; and therefore the putting of them down will dis◄ charge the state of a great deal of envy.

XII. SENTENCES.

Of the Condition of Man.

1. MAN, the servant and interpreter of nature, does and understands as much, as he shall really or mentally observe of the order of nature, himself meanwhile enclosed around by the laws of nature.

2. The limit, therefore, of human power and knowledge, is in the faculties, with which man is endowed by nature for moving and perceiving, as well as in the state of present things. For beyond these bases, those instruments avail not.

3. These faculties, though of themselves weak and inept, are yet capable, when properly and regularly managed, of setting before the judgment and use things most remote from sense and action, and of overcoming greater difficulty of works and obscurity of knowledge, than any one hath yet learned to wish.

4. Truth is one, interpretation one; but sense is oblique, the mind alien, the matter urgent; yet the work itself of interpretation is devious rather than difficult.

Of the Impediments of Interpretation.

5. Whoever, unable to doubt, and eager to affirm, shall establish principles proved, (as he believes,) conceded, and manifest, and, according to the unmoved truth of these, shall reject or receive others as repugnant or favourable; he shall exchange things for words, reason for insanity, the world for a fable, and shall be incapable of interpreting.

6. He who hath not mixed, confounded, and reduced into a mass, all distinction of things, which appears in the commonly established species, and the names imposed, shall not see the

unity of nature, nor the legitimate lines of things, and shall not be able to interpret.

7. He who hath not first, and before all, intimately explored the movements of the human mind, and therein most accurately distinguished the course of knowledge and the seats of error, shall find all things masked and, as it were, enchanted, and, till he undo the charm, shall bo unable to interpret.

8. He who is occupied in inquiring into the causes of things obvious and compound, as flame, dreams, fever, and doth not betake himself to simple natures; first, to those which are popularly esteemed such; next, to those which by art are reduced and, as it were, sublimed to truer simplicity, he shall, perhaps, if in the rest he err not, add to inventions some things not to be contemned, and next to inventions. But he shall effect nothing against the greater secularities of things, nor shall he be named an interpreter.

Of the Qualities of the Interpreter.

9. Let him who comes to interpret thus prepare and qualify himself; let him not be a follower of novelty, nor of custom or antiquity; neither let him embrace the license of contradicting or the servitude of authority. Let him not be hasty to affirm or unrestrained in doubting, but let him produce every thing marked with a certain degree of probation. Let hope be the cause of labour to him, not of idleness. Let him estimate things not by their rareness, difficulty, or credit, but by their real importance. Let him manage his private affairs under a mask, yet with some regard for the provisions of things. Let him prudently observe the first entrances of errors into truths, and of truths into errors, nothing contemning or admiring. Let him know the advantages of his nature; and let him humour the nature of others, for no man is angry with the stone that is

striking him. Let him, as it were, with one eye scan the natures of things; with the other, the uses of mankind. Of words let him distinctly know the mixed nature, which especially partakes of advantage and of inconvenience. Let him determine that with inventions the art of inventing grows. Also, let him not be vain in concealing or in setting forth the knowledge which he hath obtained, but ingenuous and prudent, and let him commend his inventions, not ambitiously or spitefully, but first in a manner most vivid and fresh, that is, most fortified against the injuries of time, and most powerful for the propagation of science, then least capable of begetting errors, and, above all, such as may procure him a legitimate reader.

Of the Duty of the Interpreter.

10. Thus qualified and prepared, let the interpreter, proceed in this way. He will consider the condition of man, and remove the impediments of interpretation; then, girded up for his work, he will prepare a history and regular series of tables, at the same time appointing their uses, co-ordinations, occurrences, and appendages. He will exhibit the solitude of things and their resemblance of each other. He will also make a selection of things, and those which are most primitive or instant, that is, conduce especially to the invention of other things, or to human wants, he will place first in order. He will also observe the pre-eminences of instances, which can do much to shorten his work. And thus furnished, he will at length maturely and happily undertake and complete rearrangements and new tables, and the interpretation itself now easy and following spontaneonsly, nay, almost as if snatched away from the mind. Which, when he shall have accomplished, he will immediately perceive and number, in their pure and native light, the true, eternal, and simplest motions of nature, from the ordinate and well adjusted progress of which arises all this infinite variety, both of the present and of all ages. And meanwhile from the beginning of his work he will not fail to receive constantly, as interest, for human affairs many things and unknown. But from hence again, altogether directing himself to and intent upon the uses of mankind, and the present state of things, he will, in diverse ways, dispose and arrange the whole for action. To natures the most secret he will assign others explanatory, and to the most absent others superinductory. And then at last, like a second nature, he will institute generalities, the errors of which may be accounted monsters, yet also saving to himself the prerogative of his art.

Of the Provision of Things.

11. But thou receivest these things with languid hope and zeal, my son, and wonderest, if

there remains such store of works most fruitful and altogether unknown, that they have not before this time, or now suddenly, been discovered; at the same time thou inquirest what they are by name, and promisest to thyself immortality, or freedom from pain, or transporting pleasure. But thou bestowest liberally upon thyself, my son, and wilt hunt after hope from knowledge, as from ignorance thou didst begin to hunt despair. Is it also by art, that the work must be adopted. Yet, as far as may be, I shall satisfy thy doubt, and obey thee. That these things are suddenly known, my son, is no wonder. Knowledge is of quick, time of tardy birth. Also the noble things which were invented before these, were not by the light of former knowledge gradually invented, but by chance, (as they say,) abundantly. But in things mechanical there is a certain extension of what is already invented, which yet deserves not the name of new invention. The way is not long, my son, but ambiguous. Yet, when I say that these things have not come to view before this time, hast thou ascertained, how much was known to all antiquity, or in all countries, or even to single individuals. But I almost agree with thee, my son, and will lead thee higher by the hand. Thou doubtest not but that if men had never existed, many of the things which are made by art (as they say) would have been wanting, as marble statues, clothes. But now, and men, have not they too their motions which they obey? Truly, my son, more subtle, and more difficult to comprehend by knowledge, yet equally certain. Indeed, you will say, men obey their will. I hear, but this is nothing. Such a cause. as fortune is in the universe, such is the will in man. If any thing therefore is produced, yet not without man, and lies also beyond the ways of man, is it not equal to nothing? Man lights. upon certain inventions which, as it were, present themselves, others he attains to by foreseeing the end and knowing the means. The knowledge of the means however he derives from things obvious. In which number then shall be placed those inventions which from things obvious re-ceive neither obvious effect nor method and light of operations? Such works are called Epistemides, or daughters of science, which do not otherwise come into action than by knowledge and pure interpretation, seeing they contain nothing obvious. But between these and the obvious now many degrees thinkest thou are numbered? Receive, my son, and seal.

12. In the last place, my son, I counsel thee, as is especially necessary, with an enlightened and sober mind to distinguish the interpretation of things divine and things natural, and not to suffer these in any way to be mingled together. Errors enough there are in this kind. Nothing is learned here unless by the similitudes of things to, each other: which, though they seem most dis-