is, they consisted of several streight ends of parallel Plates, which were
of divers lengths and angles to one another without any certain order.

The cause of all which regular Figures (and of hundreds of others, namely
of _Salts_, _Minerals_, _Metals,_ &c. which I could have here inserted,
would it not have been too long) seems to be deducible from the same
Principles, which I have (in the 13. _Observation_) hinted only, having not
yet had time to compleat a _Theory_ of them. But indeed (which I there also
hinted) I judge it the second step by which the _Pyramid_ of natural
knowledge (which is the knowledge of the form of bodies) is to be ascended:
And whosoever will climb it, must be well furnish'd with that which the
Noble _Verulam_ calls _Scalam Intellectus_; he must have scaling Ladders,
otherwise the steps are so large and high, there will be no getting up
them, and consequently little hopes of attaining any higher station, such
as to the knowledge of the most simple principle of Vegetation manifested
in Mould and Mushromes, which, as I elsewhere endeavoured to shew, seems to
be the third step; for it seems to me, that the Intellect of man is like
his body, destitute of wings, and cannot move from a lower to a higher and
more sublime station of knowledg, otherwise then step by step, nay even
there where the way is prepar'd and already made passible; as in the
_Elements of Geometry_, or the like, where it is fain to climb a whole
_series_ of Propositions by degrees, before it attains the knowledge of one
_Probleme_. But if the ascent be high, difficult and above its reach, it
must have recourse to a _novum organum_, some new engine and contrivance,
some new kind of _Algebra_, or _Analytick Art_ before it can surmount it.

* * * * *


Observ. XV. _Of _Kettering-stone_, and of the pores of _Inanimate_ bodies._