no room for doubt or instability; much _rigour_ in admitting, much
_strictness_ in comparing, and above all, much _slowness_ in debating, and
_shyness_ in determining, is to be practised. The _Understanding_ is to
_order_ all the inferiour services of the lower Faculties; but yet it is to
do this only as a _lawful Master_, and not at a _Tyrant._ It must not
_incroach_ upon their Offices, nor take upon it self the employments which
belong to either of them. It must _watch_ the irregularities of the Senses,
but it must not go before them, or _prevent_ their information. It must
_examine_, _range_, and _dispose_ of the bank which it laid up in the
Memory: but it must be sure to make _distinction_ between the _sober_ and
_well collected heap_, and the _extravagant Ideas_, and _mistaken Images_,
which there it may sometimes light upon. So many are the _links_, upon
which the true Philosophy depends, of which, if any one be _loose_, or
_weak_, the whole _chain_ is in danger of being dissolv'd; it is to _begin_
with the Hands and Eyes, and to _proceed_ on through the Memory, to be
_continued_ by the Reason; nor is it to stop there, but to _come about_ to
the Hands and Eyes again, and so, by a _continual passage round_ from one
Faculty to another, it is to be maintained in life and strength, as much as
the body of man it by the _circulation_ of the blood through the several
parts of the body, the Arms, the Feet, the Lungs, the Heart, and the Head.

If once this method were followed with diligence and attention, there is
nothing that lyes within the power of human Wit (or which is far more
effectual) of human Industry, which we might not compass; we might not only
hope for Inventions to equalize those of _Copernicus_, _Galileo_,
_Gilbert_, _Harvy_, and of others, whose Names are almost lost, that were
the Inventors of _Gun-powder_, the _Seamans Compass_, _Printing_,
_Etching_, _Graving_, _Microscopes_, &c. but multitudes that may far exceed
them: for even those discoveries seem to have been the products of some
such method, though but imperfect; What may not be therefore expected from