9. When a man hath _so often_ observed like antecedents to be followed by like consequents, that _whensoever_ he seeth the antecedent, he looketh again for the consequent; or when he seeth the consequent, maketh account there hath been the like antecedent; then he calleth both the antecedent and the consequent, _signs_ one of another, as clouds are signs of rain to come, and rain of clouds past. [Sidenote: Prudence.] 10. This taking of signs by _experience_, is that wherein men do ordinarily think, the difference stands between man and man in _wisdom_, by which they commonly understand a man’s whole ability or _power cognitive_; but this is an _error_: for the signs are but _conjectural_; and according as they have often or seldom failed, so their _assurance_ is more or less; but _never full_ and _evident_: for though a man have always seen the day and night to follow one another hitherto; yet can he not thence conclude they shall do so, or that they have done so eternally: _experience concludeth nothing universally_. If the signs hit twenty times for one missing, a man may lay a wager of twenty to one of the event; but may not conclude it for a truth. But by this it is plain, that they shall _conjecture best_, that have _most experience_, because they have most signs to conjecture by: which is the reason _old men_ are _more prudent_, that is, conjecture better, _cæteris paribus_, than young: for, being old, they remember more; and experience is but remembrance. And _men_ of _quick_ imagination, _cæteris paribus_, are more _prudent_ than those whose imaginations are slow: for they observe _more_ in _less_ time. Prudence is nothing but conjecture from experience, or taking of signs from experience warily, that is, that the experiments from which he taketh such signs be all remembered; for else the cases are not alike that seem so. [Sidenote: Caveats of concluding from experience.] 11. As in conjecture concerning things past and future, it is prudence to conclude from experience, what is like to come to pass, or to have passed already; so it is an error to conclude from it, that _it is_ so or so _called_; that is to say, we cannot from experience conclude, that any thing is to be called _just_ or _unjust_, _true_ or _false_, or any proposition _universal_ whatsoever, except it be from remembrance of the use of names imposed arbitrarily by men: for example, to have heard a sentence given in the like case, the like sentence a thousand times is not enough to conclude that the sentence is just; though most men have no other means to conclude by: but it is _necessary_, for the drawing of such conclusion, to _trace_ and _find out_, by many experiences, what men do mean by calling things just and unjust. Further, there is another _caveat_ to be taken in concluding by experience, from the tenth section of the second chapter; that is, that we conclude such things to be without, that are within us. -------