Printed for Spencer Hickman, Printer
to the R. Society, at the Rose
in S. Pauls Church-Yard, 1672.
TO THE
Right Honourable
&
Most Illustrious
THE
President & Fellows
OF THE
ROYAL SOCIETY,
The Following
DISCOURSE
Is most Humbly
Presented
By
The Authour
NEHEMIAH GREW.
TO THE
Right Reverend
JOHN
Lord Bishop of
CHESTER.
MY LORD,
I hope your pardon, if while you are holding that Best of Books in one Hand, I here present some Pages of that of Nature into your other: Especially since your Lordship knoweth very well, how excellent a Commentary This is on the Former; by which, in part God reads the World his own Definition, and their Duty to him.
But if this Address, my Lord, may be thought congruous, ’tis yet more just; and that I should let your Lordship, and others know, how much, and how deservedly I resent your extraordinary Favours: Particularly that you were pleased so far to animate my Endeavours towards the publishing the following Observations. Many whereof, and most belonging to [the First Chapter], having now lain dormant near seven years; and yet might perhaps have so continued, had not your Lordships Eye at length created Light upon them. In doing which, you have given one, amongst those many Tokens, of as well your readiness to promote learning and knowledge by the hands of others; as your high Abilities to do it by your own. Both which are so manifest in your Lordship, that like the first Principles of Mathematical Science, they are not so much to be asserted, because known and granted by all.
The Consideration whereof, my Lord, may make me not only just in owning of your Favours, but also most Ambitious of your Patronage: which yet to bespeak, I must confess I cannot well. Not that I think what is good and valuable, is alwaies its own best Advocate; for I know that the Censures of men are humorous and variable, and that one Age must have leave to frown on those Books, which another will do nothing less than kiss and embrace. But chiefly for this Reason, lest I should so much as seem desirous of your Lordships Solliciting my Cause as to all I have said: For as it is your Glory, that you like not so to shine, as to put out the least Star; so were it to your Dishonour to borrow your Name to illustrate the Spots, though of the most conspicuous.