22 chapters
3 hour read
Selected Chapters
22 chapters
VALERIUS TERMINUS: OF THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE
VALERIUS TERMINUS: OF THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE
CONTENTS Preface by Robert Leslie Ellis VALERIUS TERMINUS: OF THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE CHAPTER 1. — OF THE LIMITS AND END OF KNOWLEDGE. CHAPTER 4. CHAPTER 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. CHAPTER 8. — OF THE IMPEDIMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE IN HANDLING IT BY PARTS, AND IN SLIPPING OFF PARTICULAR SCIENCES FROM T
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Preface by Robert Leslie Ellis
Preface by Robert Leslie Ellis
The following fragments of a great work on the Interpretation of Nature were first published in Stephens's Letters and Remains [1734] They consist partly of detached passages, and partly of an epitome of twelve chapters of the first book of the proposed work. The detached passages contain the first, sixth, and eighth chapters, and portions of the fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and sixteenth. The epitome contains an account of the contents of all the chapters from the twelfth to
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 1. — OF THE LIMITS AND END OF KNOWLEDGE.
CHAPTER 1. — OF THE LIMITS AND END OF KNOWLEDGE.
In the divine nature both religion and philosophy hath acknowledged goodness in perfection, science or providence comprehending all things, and absolute sovereignty or kingdom. In aspiring to the throne of power the angels transgressed and fell, in presuming to come within the oracle of knowledge man transgressed and fell; but in pursuit towards the similitude of God's goodness or love (which is one thing, for love is nothing else but goodness put in motion or applied) neither man or spirit ever
21 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 4.
CHAPTER 4.
OF THE IMPEDIMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE, BEING THE 4TH CHAPTER, THE PREFACE ONLY OF IT. In some things it is more hard to attempt than to achieve, which falleth out when the difficulty is not so much in the matter or subject, as it is in the crossness and indisposition of the mind of man to think of any such thing, to will or to resolve it. And therefore Titus Livius in his declamatory digression wherein he doth depress and extenuate the honour of Alexander's conquests saith, NIHIL ALIUD QUAM BENE AUSUS
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 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.
CHAPTER 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
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 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.
CHAPTER 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 mat
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 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.
CHAPTER 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
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ENTORY.
ENTORY.
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 ima
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 11. — THE CHAPTER IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE INVENTORY; BEING THE 11TH IN ORDER; A PART THEREOF.
CHAPTER 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 circumlocution 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 c
21 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 12.
CHAPTER 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
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 13.
CHAPTER 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 shell, 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
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 14.
CHAPTER 14.
Of the error in propounding the search of the materials or dead beginnings or principles of things, and not the nature of motions, inclinations, and applications. That the whole scope of the former search is impertinent and vain; both because there are no such beginnings, and if there were they could not be known. That the latter manner of search (which is all) they pass over compendiously and slightly as a by-matter. That the several conceits in that kind, as that the lively and moving beginnin
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 15.
CHAPTER 15.
Of the great error of inquiring knowledge in Anticipations. That I call Anticipations the voluntary collections that the mind maketh of knowledge; which is every man's reason. That though this be a solemn thing, and serves the turn to negotiate between man and man (because of the conformity and participation of men's minds in the like errors), yet towards inquiry of the truth of things and works it is of no value. That civil respects are a lett that this pretended reason should not be so contemp
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 16.
CHAPTER 16.
That the mind of a man, as it is not a vessel of that content or receipt to comprehend knowledge without helps and supplies, so again it is not sincere, but of an ill and corrupt tincture. Of the inherent and profound errors and superstitions in the nature of the mind, and of the four sorts of Idols or false appearances that offer themselves to the understanding in the inquisition of knowledge; that is to say, the Idols of the Tribe, the Idols of the Palace, the Idols of the Cave, and the Idols
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 17.
CHAPTER 17.
Of the errors of such as have descended and applied themselves to experience, and attempted to induce knowledge upon particulars. That they have not had the resolution and strength of mind to free themselves wholly from Anticipations, but have made a confusion and intermixture of Anticipations and observations, and so vanished. That if any have had the strength of mind generally to purge away and discharge all Anticipations, they have not had that greater and double strength and patience of mind
5 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 18.
CHAPTER 18.
That the cautels and devices put in practice in the delivery of knowledge for the covering and palliating of ignorance, and the gracing and overvaluing of that they utter, are without number; but none more bold and more hurtful than two; the one that men have used of a few observations upon any subject to make a solemn and formal art, by filling it up with discourse, accommodating it with some circumstances and directions to practice, and digesting it into method, whereby men grow satisfied and
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 19.
CHAPTER 19.
Of the impediments which have been in the affections, the principle whereof hath been despair or diffidence, and the strong apprehension of the difficulty, obscurity, and infiniteness which belongeth to the invention of knowledge, and that men have not known their own strength, and that the supposed difficulties and vastness of the work is rather in shew and muster than in state or substance where the true way is taken. That this diffidence hath moved and caused some never to enter into search,
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 21.
CHAPTER 21.
Of the impediments which have been in the two extreme humours of admiration of antiquity and love of novelty, and again of over-servile reverence or over-light scorn of the opinions of others....
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 22.
CHAPTER 22.
Of the impediments which have been in the affection of pride, specially of one kind, which is the disdain of dwelling and being conversant much in experiences and particulars, specially such as are vulgar in occurrency, and base and ignoble in use. That besides certain higher mysteries of pride, generalities seem to have a dignity and solemnity, in that they do not put men in mind of their familiar actions, in that they have less affinity with arts mechanical and illiberal, in that they are not
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 25.
CHAPTER 25.
Of the impediments which have been in the state of heathen religion and other superstitions and errors of religion. And that in the true religion there hath not nor is any impediment, except it be by accident or intermixture of humour. That a religion which consisteth in rites and forms of adoration, and not in confessions and beliefs, is adverse to knowledge; because men having liberty to inquire and discourse of Theology at pleasure, it cometh to pass that all inquisition of nature endeth and
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER 26.
CHAPTER 26.
Of the impediments which have been in the nature of society and the policies of state. That there is no composition of estate or society, nor order or quality of persons, which have not some point of contrariety towards true knowledge. That monarchies incline wits to profit and pleasure, and commonwealths to glory and vanity. That universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation, cloisters to fables and unprofitable subtilty, study at large to variety; and that it is hard to say, whether m
50 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
BACK COVER
BACK COVER
Writing on the Back Cover of VALERIUS TERMINUS The writing in the original is on the outside of the last leaf, which is in fact the cover. The front cover, if there ever was one, is lost. The ink with which the line containing the symbols is written corresponds with that in the body of the manuscript; and the line itself is placed symmetrically in the middle of the page, near the top. The two lower lines are apparently by another hand, probably of later date, certainly in ink of a different colo
5 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter