XXXV. Besides this, it is a matter of great importance to him who is in search of truth, to chuse the path that leads directly on to his object, and not to pursue that which will conduct him out of his way, although it should to the eye, appear the most desirable, and the most pleasant to walk through. There is no doubt, that a physician in a college, mounted in a professional chair, and reading a lecture, makes a more pompous figure, than when he is attending to, and observing the dissection of a dead body in an hospital; but it is by attending to the dissection, that he attains a knowledge of the situation and arrangement of the internal parts of the body, which he could never have acquired, by reasoning or disputing all his life long in a school. Ideal gold, is possessed in imagination by lazy people, who while they are sleeping in their beds, dream it is showered down on them; but the true ore, can only be acquired by force of labour, and digging in the mines with diligence and industry. And in no other manner, otherwise than in appearance only, can we attain more, than that shadow of truth, which we call probability, for these are the largest advances we can make, by the force of our imaginations exerted in the retirements of the closet; and the truth itself, is only to be found by scrutinizing sensible objects, and searching in them, for the hidden secrets of nature. SECT. IX. XXXVI. There is another objection to experimental observations, which is not more reasonable, or better founded than that we have just mentioned, which is made by some superficial schoolmen, who say, that these sort of enquiries, do not require reason and perspicuity, but only eye-sight, diligence, and memory; on which account they condemn them, as things not well calculated for the exertion of invention, and ingenuity. But how little do these people know of the nature of those physical experiments, or of the manner in which they are made, which have employed the attention of so many learned and sublime spirits, of France, Italy, England, and Germany. In order to discover whether any deceitful appearance has crept in, they repeat every experiment many times over; and invent many ingenious methods of examination, to find out, whether the phenomenon proceeded from that cause, which at first sight it seemed to be derived from, or whether it was the effect of some accidental, or occult one. They make exact and nice combinations of their experiments, and invent ingenious methods of comparing them one with another, and then weigh in a most delicate balance, both the analogies, and the differences between them, in order to derive with almost mathematical certainty, the consequences to be deduced from them; and they peep into those crevices of nature that are nearly imperceptible, that they may discern through them, her inmost secrets; and I beyond comparison, find more delicate ingenuity, and more perspicuity, in many of the experiments of the famous