ous about the Method or
Contrivance of a Treatise, wherein I do not pretend to present my Reader
with a compleat Fabrick, or so much as Modell; but only to bring in
Materials proper for the Building; And if I did not well know how Ingenious
the Curiosity and Civility of Friends makes them, to perswade Men by
specious allegations, to gratifie their desires; I should have been made to
believe by persons very well qualify'd to judge of matters of this nature,
that the following Experiments will not need the addition of accurate
Method and speculative Notions to procure Acceptance for the Treatise that
contains them: For it hath been represented, That in most of them, as the
Novelty will make them surprizing, and the Quickness of performance, keep
them from being tedious; so the sensible changes, that are effected by
them, are so manifest, so great, and so sudden, that scarce any will be
displeased to see them, and those that are any thing Curious will scarce be
able to see them, without finding themselves excited, to make Reflexions
upon Them. But though with me, who love to measure Physical things by
their _use_, not their _strangeness_, or _prettiness_, the partiality of
others prevails not to make me over value these, or look upon them in
themselves as other than Trifles: Yet I confess, that ever since I did
divers years ago shew some of them to a Learned Company of _Virtuosi_: so
many persons of differing Conditions, and ev'n Sexes, have been Curious to
see them, and pleas'd not to Dislike them, that I cannot Despair, but that
by complying with those that urge the Publication of them, I may both
gratifie and excite the Curious, and lay perhaps a Foundation whereon
either others or my self may in time superstruct a substantial theory of
Colours. And if _Aristotle_, after his Master _Plato_, have rightly
observ'd Admiration to be the _Parent of Philosophy_, the wonder, some of
these Trifles have been wont to produce in all sorts of Beholders, and the
access they have sometimes gain'd ev'n to the Closets of Ladies, seem to
promise, that since the subject is so pleasing, that the Speculation
appears as Delightful! as Difficult, such easie and recreative Experiments,
which require but little time, or charge, or trouble in the making, and
when made are sensible and surprizing enough, may contribute more than
others, (far more important but as much more difficult) to recommend those
parts of Learning (Chymistry and Corpuscular P