Page:Micrographia - or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon.djvu/153

Rh thickness, I observ'd that both the upper and the under sides of it were curiously quill'd, furrow'd, or grain'd, as it were, which when the Sun shone on the Plate, was exceeding easily to be perceiv'd to be much after the shape of the lines in the 6. Figure of the 8. Scheme, that 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.

This Stone which is brought from Kettering in Northampton-Shire, and digg'd out of a Quarry, as I am inform'd, has a grain altogether admirable, nor have I ever seen or heard of any other stone that has the like. It is made up of an innumerable company of small bodies, not all of the same cize or shape, but for the most part, not much differing from a Globular form, nor exceed they one another in Diameter above three or four times; they appear to the eye, like the Cobb or Ovary of a Herring, or some smaller fishes, but for the most part, the particles seem somewhat less, and not so uniform; but their variation from a perfect globular ball, seems to be only by the pressure of the contiguous bals which have a little deprest and protruded those toucht sides inward, and forc'd  Rh