There Are Four Great Sciences, Without Which

Argument Is Conclusive, But It Does Not Remove Doubt.

Few Have Attained To Consummate Wisdom In The Perfection Of Philosophy: Solomon Attained To It, And Aristotle In Relation To His Times, And In A Later Age Avicenna, And In Our Own Days The Recently Deceased Robert, Bishop Of Lincoln, And Adam Marsh.

But Concerning Vision Alone Is A Separate Science Formed Among Philosophers, Namely, Optics, And Not Concerning Any Other Sense ... It Is Possible That Some Other Science May Be More Useful, But No Other Science Has So Much Sweetness And Beauty Of Utility. Therefore It Is The Flower Of The Whole Of Philosophy And Through It, And Not Without It, Can The Other Sciences Be Known.

First, By The Figurations Of Art There Be Made Instruments Of Navigation Without Men To Row Them, As Great Ships To Brooke The Sea, Only With One Man To Steer Them, And They Shall Sail Far More Swiftly Than If They Were Full Of Men; Also Chariots That Shall Move With Unspeakable Force Without Any Living Creature To Stir Them. Likewise An Instrument May Be Made To Fly Withall If One Sits In The Midst Of The Instrument, And Do Turn An Engine, By Which The Wings, Being Artificially Composed, May Beat The Air After The Manner Of A Flying Bird.

In The Mathematics I Can Report No Deficience, Except That It Be That Men Do Not Sufficiently Understand The Excellent Use Of The Pure Mathematics, In That They Do Remedy And Cure Many Defects In The Wit And Faculties Intellectual. For If The Wit Be Too Dull, They Sharpen It; If Too Wandering, They Fix It; If Too Inherent In The Sense, They Abstract It.