In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be
that men do not sufficiently understand this 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. So that as tennis is a game of no use
in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a
body ready to put itself into all postures, so in the mathematics
that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than
that which is principal and intended. And as for the mixed
mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail
to be more kinds of them as Nature grows further disclosed. Thus
much of natural science, or the part of Nature speculative.
(3) For natural prudence, or the part operative of natural
philosophy, we will divide it into three parts--experimental,
philosophical, and magical; which three parts active have a
correspondence and analogy with the three parts speculative, natural
history, physic, and metaphysic.
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