Micrographia - Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon by Robert Hooke
page 187 of 465 (40%)
page 187 of 465 (40%)
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successfull endeavour; and such must certainly the knowledge of the
efficient and concurrent causes of all these curious Geometrical Figures be, which has made the Philosophers hitherto to conclude nature in these things to play the Geometrician, according to that saying of _Plato_, [Greek: Ho Theos geometrei]. Or next, a great variety of matter in the Enquiry; and here we meet with nothing less than the _Mathematicks_ of nature, having every day a new Figure to contemplate, or a variation of the same in another body, Which do afford us a third thing, which will yet more sweeten the Enquiry, and that is, a multitude of information; we are not so much to grope in the dark, as in most other Enquiries, where the _Inventum_ is great; for having such a multitude of instances to compare, and such easie ways of generating, or compounding and of destroying the form, as in the _Solution_ and _Crystallization_ of Salts, we cannot but learn plentifull information to proceed by. And this will further appear from the universality of the Principle which Nature has made use of almost in all inanimate bodies. And therefore, as the contemplation of them all conduces to the knowledg of any one; so from a Scientifical knowledge of any one does follow the fame of all, and every one. And fourthly, for the usefulness of this knowledge, when acquir'd; certainly none can doubt, that considers that it caries us a step forward into the Labirinth of Nature, in the right way towards the end we propose our selves in all Philosophical Enquiries. So that knowing what is the form of Inanimate or Mineral bodies, we shall be the better able to proceed in our next Enquiry after the forms of Vegetative bodies; and last of all, of Animate ones, that seeming to be the highest step of natural knowledge that the mind of man is capable of. |
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