APHORISMS ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE PRIMARY HISTORY

I

Nature exists in three states, and is subject, as it were, to three kinds of regimen. Either she is free and develops herself in her own ordinary course, or she is forced out of her proper state by the perverseness and insubordination of matter and the violence of impediments, or she is constrained and molded by art and human ministry. The first state refers to the "species" of things; the second to "monsters"; the third to "things artificial." For in things artificial nature takes orders from man and works under his authority; without man, such things would never have been made. But by the help and ministry of man a new face of bodies, another universe or theater of things, comes into view. Natural history therefore is threefold. It treats of the "liberty" of nature, or the "errors" of nature, or the "bonds" of nature, so that we may fairly distribute it into history of "generations," of "pretergenerations," and of "arts"; which last I also call "mechanical" or "experimental" history. And yet I do not make it a rule that these three should be kept apart and separately treated. For why should not the history of the monsters in the several species be joined with the history of the species themselves? And things artificial again may sometimes be rightly joined with the species, though sometimes they will be better kept separate. It will be best, therefore, to consider these things as the case arises. For too much method produces iterations and prolixity as well as none at all.