servations_; and to this purpose it has been their principal indeavour to
_enlarge & strengthen_ the _Senses_ by _Medicine_, and by such _outward
Instruments_ as are proper for their particular works. By this means they
find some reason to suspect, that those effects of Bodies, which have been
commonly attributed to _Qualities_, and those confess'd to be _occult_, are
perform'd by the small _Machines_ of Nature, which are not to be discern'd
without these helps, seeming the meer products of _Motion_, _Figure_, and
_Magnitude_; and that the _Natural Textures_, which some call the _Plastick
faculty_, may be made in _Looms_, which a greater perfection of Opticks may
make discernable by these Glasses; so as now they are no more puzzled about
them, then the vulgar are to conceive, how _Tapestry_ or _flowred Stuffs_
are woven. And the ends of all these Inquiries they intend to be the
_Pleasure_ of Contemplative minds, but above all, the _ease and dispatch_
of the labours of mens hands. They do indeed neglect no opportunity to
bring all the _rare_ things of Remote Countries within the compass of their
knowledge and practice. But they still acknowledg their _most useful_
Informations to arise from _common_ things, and from _diversifying_ their
most _ordinary_ operations upon them. They do not wholly reject Experiments
of meer _light_ and _theory_; but they principally aim at such, whose
Applications will _improve and facilitate_ the present way of _Manual
Arts_. And though some men, who are perhaps taken up about less honourable
Employments, are pleas'd to censure their proceedings, yet they can shew
more _fruits_ of their first three years, wherein they have assembled, then
any other _Society_ in _Europe_ can for a much larger space of time. 'Tis
true, such undertakings as theirs do commonly meet with small
incouragement, because men are generally rather taken with the _plausible_
and _discursive_, then the _real_ and the solid part of Philosophy; yet by
the good fortune of their institution, in an Age of all others the most
_inquisitive_, they have been assisted by the _contribution_ and _presence_
of very many of the chief _Nobility_ and _Gentry_, and others who are some
of the _most considerable_ in their several Professions. But that that yet
farther convinces me of the _Real esteem_ that the more _serious_ part of
men have of this _Society_, is, that several _Merchants_, men who act in
earnest (whose Object is _meum & tuum_,