must stand coeval with material creation.
a mechanical knack, & ſkill in drawing aſsiſts much in making experiments. ſuch as poſseſs it take thir ideas of things incomparably ſtronger & more perfect than others. it inlarges thir view, they ſee deeper, & farther. It ripens, & quickens thir invention. for want of this handycraft, how many philoſophers quietly sit down in thir ſtudys, & invent an hypotheſis? but Sr. Iſaac's way was, by dint of experiment to find out, quid Natura faciat aut feret?
philoſophers, like great conquerors, or politic ministers of ſtate, must take into thir aſſiſtance arts, & helps low, & ſordid. as ſuccess in war depends on the arm of the ſcum of mankind, as well as on the head of the General.
children are always imitators. & perhaps his being brought up in an apothecarys houſe might give him a turn to the ſtudy of nature. no doubt it gave him a love for herbarizing.
at leaſt accelerated it.
but he was in reality born a philoſopher. learning, & accident, & induſtry pointed out to his diſcerning eye some few, ſimple & universal truths. these by time, & reflexion, he gradually extended one from another, one beyond another, till he unfolded the œconomy of the macrocoſm.
