in comparison of what remains to be discovered; and that we could free
ourselves from an infinity of maladies of body as well as of mind, and
perhaps also even from the debility of age, if we had sufficiently ample
knowledge of their causes, and of all the remedies provided for us by
nature. But since I designed to employ my whole life in the search after
so necessary a science, and since I had fallen in with a path which seems
to me such, that if any one follow it he must inevitably reach the end
desired, unless he be hindered either by the shortness of life or the want
of experiments, I judged that there could be no more effectual provision
against these two impediments than if I were faithfully to communicate to
the public all the little I might myself have found, and incite men of
superior genius to strive to proceed farther, by contributing, each
according to his inclination and ability, to the experiments which it
would be necessary to make, and also by informing the public of all they
might discover, so that, by the last beginning where those before them had
left off, and thus connecting the lives and labours of many, we might
collectively proceed much farther than each by himself could do.

I remarked, moreover, with respect to experiments, that they become always
more necessary the more one is advanced in knowledge; for, at the
commencement, it is better to make use only of what is spontaneously
presented to our senses, and of which we cannot remain ignorant, provided
we bestow on it any reflection, however slight, than to concern ourselves
about more uncommon and recondite phenomena: the reason of which is, that
the more uncommon often only mislead us so long as the causes of the more
ordinary are still unknown; and the circumstances upon which they depend
are almost always so special and minute as to be highly difficult to
detect. But in this I have adopted the following order: first, I have
essayed to find in general the principles, or first causes of all that is
or can be in the world, without taking into consideration for this end