"With all these grounds of hope, it is still impossible not to see that such an undertaking is, in no small degree, arduous, and its event obscure. But all who venture upon such tasks must gather trust and encouragement from reflections like those by which their great forerunner prepared himself for his endeavors;--by recollecting that they are aiming to advance the best interests and privileges of man; and that they may expect all the best and wisest of men to join them in their aspirations and to aid them in their labors.

"'Concerning ourselves we speak not; but as touching the matter which we have in hand, this we ask;--that men deem it not to be the setting up of an Opinion, but the performing of a Work; and that they receive this as a certainty--that we are not laying the foundations of any sect or doctrine, but of the profit and dignity of mankind:--Furthermore, {11} that being well disposed to what shall advantage themselves, and putting off factions and prejudices, they take common counsel with us, to the end that being by these our aids and appliances freed and defended from wanderings and impediments, they may lend their hands also to the labors which remain to be performed:--And yet, further, that they be of good hope; neither feign and imagine to themselves this our Reform as something of infinite dimension and beyond the grasp of mortal man, when, in truth, it is, of infinite error, the end and true limit; and is by no means unmindful of the condition of mortality and humanity, not confiding that such a thing can be carried to its perfect close in the space of one single day, but assigning it as a task to a succession of generations.'--BACON--INSTAURATIO MAGNA, Præf. ad fin.

"'If there be any man who has it at heart, not merely to take his stand on what has already been discovered, but to profit by that, and to go on to something beyond;--not to conquer an adversary by disputing, but to conquer nature by working;--not to opine probably and prettily, but to know certainly and demonstrably;--let such, as being true sons of nature (if they will consent to do so), join themselves to us; so that, leaving the porch of nature which endless multitudes have so long trod, we may at last open a way to the inner courts. And that we may mark the two ways, that old one, and our new one, by familiar names, we have been wont to call the one the Anticipation of the Mind, the other, the Interpretation of Nature.'--INST. MAG. Præf. ad Part. ii.

{{13}} CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

PAGE ~Preface to the Third Edition. 7~ ~Index of Proper Names. 23~ ~Index of Technical Terms. 33~