PREFACE

Everything, or at least the most important things that happen in Nature: since everyone would have to consider themselves a total fool if they dared to find a supposition capable of giving reasons for phenomena that were entirely unknown to them; since a change in the phenomena necessarily brings a change in the Hypothesis hypothesis.

To escape from this confusion requires more labor than someone who has never attempted it might perhaps think: especially if we have advanced somewhat far in these studies. Everyone who has ever experienced it knows how distressing it is to have to abandon a supposition which one has held for true and clung to for many years, over which one has studied so many nights, written over so many papers, had so many meditations, read so many books; and through which one imagined having either reached the peak of all wisdom or at least soon would. Those who want to see an example of this may please read the Preface of the Anatomie der Herffenen Anatomy of the Brain by Mr. Willifius Thomas Willis, a famous English physician.

§. 17. To avoid being led astray by this method of philosophizing from suppositions alone, it is first necessary that one does not cling too much to these speculative studies, however much they silently flatter us through the fertility of their suppositions and the display of the greatness of our intellect; but that one turns to actual experiments, investigating not the thoughts of men, but the things in Nature itself. This will make the smallness of our knowledge apparent in countless cases, and persuade us of the power and wisdom of the Maker in an entirely different and much more emphatic way, showing how great the difference is between knowing something by experience and guessing something by supposition.

§. 18. The other thing by which one can secure oneself from the bad consequences of these kinds of studies is, when asked about things that are clear enough to us, to answer calmly and without shame with a Nefcio original Latin: "I do not know"; by no means hungering to give a reason for it through this or that unknown, unproven hypothesis in order to preserve one's prestige. This protects us so that the natural high-mindedness of our own intellect does not throw sand in our eyes; and it is the true means to make us think humbly of ourselves and to behold the works of the great Creator with wonder.

I know well how difficult it is to move someone who has some opinion of the fame of his learning and adheres to these studies to admit frankly original: "yets niet te weten" that he does not know something; all the more because one or another supposition always seems to leave a way open for him through which he can escape this answer. But if those who are otherwise silently offended by this are truly learned, they will nevertheless be willing to grant that a eruditum nescire learned ignorance is also found; namely, in someone who, first knowing what many great intellects say about a matter, can nevertheless demonstrate through experience that these thoughts are not to be held as truth; and even when asked about it, admits his ignorance without reservation. This cannot be attributed by any sensible person to the detriment of the respect he has gained through his learning; and meanwhile, it yields the fruit that one sees and recognizes the Divine wisdom, which shines in the phenomena of the world, as going far beyond his own, unlike many unfortunate Ongodisten atheists who have fallen through too great a delusion of knowing everything.

§. 19. From all this, however, let no one judge that we consider the making of suppositions to be entirely useless; since, when used properly, they are of remarkable service in many cases. Not only because they often define the thoughts of an investigator a bit better and prevent them from wandering too wildly; but also primarily because they are of particular usefulness for guiding young intellects and giving them an example of how they must afterwards reason from experiences. This is fine as long as it is done with such caution that one makes the proper distinction for their students between this and between suppositions. Therefore, to make use of them for such gentlemen whose duty and aim requires them to govern youth in the course of studies is praiseworthy. But when done by others, who do not have the forming of young intellects as their charge, only to show the greatness of their learning, it seems (if I may say my judgment here with respect) that it cannot find much approval from anyone except those who are more eager to know the thoughts of these writers than the truth of things.

Before I move on to anything else, I cannot omit to add here; that while reading the writings of these Philosophen philosophers who describe not only the Universe down to its smallest parts with such certainty, but even undertake to make the original becoming and beginning of everything known to the world, I have often been unable to refrain from thinking: if these gentlemen had no more opportunity to know how a human being is born or brought forth than they have of how the world and the terrestrial globe became; how wonderfully strange suppositions might have been brought to light by them for that purpose. Not one of them, however many there were, would hit upon the correct manner; despite the fact that they could all be supported with as many reasons as are now used by some philosophers for the imaginary formation of the Universe. This is to say nothing of the fact that if the true way in which a human gets his being, as far as it is known, were proposed to these philosophers, there would undoubtedly be some among them who would think