1. Because there is no opinion (especially about created things) but it hath once been new; and if an opinion should be rejected meerly because of novelty, then it will follow, that either all opinions might have been rejected for that very reason, or that novelty is no safe ground only, why an opinion should be opposed or rejected. 2. Antiquity and Novelty are but relations _quoad nostrum intellectum, non quoad naturam_; for the truth, as it is fundamentally in things _extra intellectum_, cannot be accounted either old or new. And an opinion, when first found out and divulged, is as much a truth then, as when the current of hundreds or thousands of years have passed since its discovery. For it was no less a truth, when in the infancy of Philosophy it was holden, that there was generation and corruption in Nature, in respect of Individuals, than it is now: so little doth Time, Antiquity, or Novelty alter, change, confirm, or overthrow truth; for _veritas est temporis filia_, in regard of its discovery to us or by us, who must draw it forth _è puteo Democriti_. And the existence of the _West-Indies_ was as well before the discovery made by _Columbus_ as since, and our ignorance of it did not impeach the truth of its being, neither did the novelty of its discovery make it less verity, nor the years since make it more: so that we ought simply to examine, whether an opinion be possible or impossible, probable or improbable, true or false; and if it be false, we ought to reject it, though it seem never so venerable by the white hairs of Antiquity; nor ought we to refuse it, though it seem never so young, or near its birth. For as St. _Cyprian_ said: _Error vetustatis est vetustas erroris_. [Sidenote: Advanc. of Learn. l. 1. c. 5.] 3. In regard of Natural Philosophy, and the knowledge of the properties of created things, and the knowledge of them, we preposterously reckon former Ages, and the men that lived in them, the Ancients; which in regard of production and generation of the Individuals of their own Species are so; but in respect of knowledge and experience, this Age is to be accounted the most ancient. For as the learned Lord _Bacon_ saith: “Indeed to speak truly, _Antiquitas seculi, juventus mundi_,” Antiquity of time is the youth of the World. Certainly our times are the ancient times, when the World is now ancient, and not those which we count ancient, _ordine retrogrado_, by a computation backward from our own times; and yet so much credit hath been given to old Authors, as to invest them with the power of Dictators, that their words should stand, rather than admit them as Consuls to give advice. [Sidenote: _Rule 3._]