Micrographia - Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon by Robert Hooke
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some _Materials_, which they may afterwards _order_ and _manage_ with
better skill, and to far greater advantage. The next remedies in this universal cure of the Mind are to be applyed to the _Memory_, and they are to consist of such Directions as may inform us, what things are best to be _stor'd up_ for our purpose, and which is the best way of so _disposing_ them, that they may not only be _kept in safety_, but ready and convenient, to be at any time _produc'd_ for use, as occasion shall require. But I will not here prevent my self in what I may say in another Discourse, wherein I shall make an attempt to propose some Considerations of the manner of compiling a Natural and Artificial History, and of so ranging and registring its Particulars into Philosophical Tables, as may make them most useful for the raising of _Axioms_ and _Theories_. The last indeed is the most _hazardous_ Enterprize, and yet the most _necessary_; and that is, to take such care that the _Judgment_ and the _Reason_ of Man (which is the third Faculty to be repair'd and improv'd) should receive such assistance, as to avoid the dangers to which it it by nature most subject. The Imperfections, which I have already mention'd, to which it is lyable, do either belong to the _extent_, or the _goodness_ of its knowledge; and here the difficulty is the greater, least that which may be thought a _remedy_ for the one should prove _destructive_ to the other, least by seeking to inlarge our Knowledge, we should render it weak, and uncertain; and least by being too scrupulous and exact about every Circumstance of it, we should confine and streighten it too much. In both these the middle wayes are to be taken, nothing it to be_ omitted_, and yet every thing to pass a _mature deliberation_: No _Intelligence_ from Men of all Professions, and quarters of the World, to be _slighted_, and yet all to be so _severely examin'd_, that there remain |
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