XXVIII

Among Prerogative Instances I will put in the seventh place Singular Instances, which I also call Irregular or Heteroclite, to borrow a term from grammarians. They are such as exhibit bodies in the concrete, which seem to be out of the course and broken off from the order of nature, and not agreeing with other bodies of the same kind. For conformable instances are like each other; singular instances are like themselves alone. The use of singular instances is the same as that of clandestine, namely, to raise and unite nature for the purpose of discovering kinds of common natures, to be afterward limited by true specific differences. For we are not to give up the investigation until the properties and qualities found in such things as may be taken for miracles of nature be reduced and comprehended under some form or fixed law, so that all the irregularity or singularity shall be found to depend on some common form, and the miracle shall turn out to be only in the exact specific differences, and the degree, and the rare concurrence, not in the species itself. Whereas now the thoughts of men go no further than to pronounce such things the secrets and mighty works of nature, things as it were causeless, and exceptions to general rules.

Examples of singular instances are the sun and moon among stars; the magnet among stones; quicksilver among metals; the elephant among quadrupeds; the venereal sense among kinds of touch; the scent of hounds among kinds of smell. So among grammarians the letter S is held singular, on account of its easy combination with consonants, sometimes with two, sometimes even with three, which property no other letter has. Such instances must be regarded as most valuable, because they sharpen and quicken investigation and help to cure the understanding depraved by custom and the common course of things.