that of Invention, of which, though in Logick and Rhetorick so many Bounds and Helps are given, yet I believe very few have argued or discoursed by those Topicks. But whether that be unconfin'd, or no, it is certain that Experimenting is, like that which is called Decence in human Life: which, though it be that, by which all our Actions are to be fashioned, and though many things may be plausibly laid upon it; yet it is never wholly to be reduced to standing. Precepts, and may almost as easily be obtain'd, as defin'd.
Their other Care has been, to regard the least and the plainest Things, and those that may appear at first the most inconsiderable, as well as the greatest Curiosities. This was visibly neglected by the Antients. The Histories of Pliny, Aristotle, Solinus, Ælian, abounding more with pretty Tales, and fine monstrous Stories, than sober and fruitful Relations. If they could gather together some extraordinary Qualities of Stones or Minerals, some Rarities of the Age, the Food, the Colour, the Shapes of Beasts, or some Virtues of Fountains, or Rivers, they thought they had performed the chiefest Part of Natural Historians. But this Course is subject to much Corruption: It is not the true following of Nature; for that still goes on in a steady Road, nor is it so extravagant, and so artificial in its Contrivances, as our Admiration, proceeding from our Ignorance, makes it. It is also a Way that, of all others, is most subject to be deceived; for it will make Men inclinable to bend the Truth much awry, to raise a specious Observation out of it. It stops the severe Progress of Inquiry, infecting the Mind, and making it averse from the true Natural Philosophy: It is like Romances, in respect of True History; which,
