have a capacity to advance farther then I have done, they may with
greater consequence finde out of themselves whatsoever I think I have
found; Forasmuch as having never examined any thing but by order, it's
certain, that what remains yet for me to discover, is in it self more
difficult and more hid, then what I have already here before met with;
and they would receive much less satisfaction in learning it from me,
then from themselves. Besides that, the habit which they would get by
seeking first of all the easie things, and passing by degrees to others
more difficult, will be more usefull to them, then all my instructions.
As I for my part am perswaded, that had I been taught from my youth all
the Truths whose demonstrations I have discovered since, and had taken
no pains to learn them, perhaps I should never have known any other, or
at least, I should never have acquired that habit, and that faculty
which I think I have, still to finde out new ones, as I apply my self to
the search of them. And in a word, if there be in the world any work
which cannot be so well ended by any other, as by the same who began it,
it's that which I am now about.

It's true, That one man will not be sufficient to make all the
experiments which may conduce thereunto: But withall, he cannot
profitably imploy other hands then his own, unlesse it be those of
Artists, or others whom he hires, and whom the hope of profit (which is
a very powerfull motive) might cause exactly to do all those things he
should appoint them: For as for voluntary persons, who by curiosity or a
desire to learn, would perhaps offer themselves to his help, besides
that commonly they promise more then they perform, and make onely fair
propositions, whereof none ever succeeds, they would infallibly be paid
by the solution of some difficulties, or at least by complements and
unprofitable entertainments, which could not cost him so little of his
time, but he would be a loser thereby. And for the Experiments which
others have already made, although they would even communicate them to
him (which those who call them Secrets would never do,) they are for
the most part composed of so many circumstances, or superfluous
ingredients, that it would be very hard for him to decypher the truth of
them: Besides, he would find them all so ill exprest, or else so false,
by reason that those who made them have laboured to make them appear
conformable to their principles; that if there were