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And this will be enough in the way of general precepts which, if they be diligently observed, the work of the history will at once go straight toward its object and be prevented from increasing beyond bounds. But if even as here circumscribed and limited it should appear to some poor-spirited person a vast work — let him turn to the libraries; and there among other things let him look at the bodies of civil and canonical law on one side, and at the commentaries of doctors and lawyers on the other, and see what a difference there is between the two in point of mass and volume. For we (who as faithful secretaries do but enter and set down the laws themselves of nature and nothing else) are content with brevity, and almost compelled to it by the condition of things; whereas opinions, doctrines, and speculations are without number and without end.

And whereas in the Plan of the Work I have spoken of the cardinal virtues in nature, and said that a history of these must also be collected and written before we come to the work of Interpretation, I have not forgotten this, but I reserve this part for myself since until men have begun to be somewhat more closely intimate with nature, I cannot venture to rely very much on other people's industry in that matter.

And now should come the delineation of the particular histories. But I have at present so many other things to do that I can only find time to subjoin a Catalogue of their titles. As soon, however, as I have leisure for it, I mean to draw up a set of questions on the several subjects, and to explain what points with regard to each of the histories are especially to be inquired and collected, as conducing to the end I have in view — like a kind of particular topics. In other words, I mean (according to the practice in civil causes) in this great plea or suit granted by the divine favor and providence (whereby the human race seeks to recover its right over nature), to examine nature herself and the arts upon interrogatories.