10. Experience may procure us convenience, not science.
I deny not but a man, accustomed to rational and regular
experiments, shall be able to see further into the nature of bodies and guess righter at their yet unknown properties
than one that is a stranger to them: but yet, as I have said, this is but judgment and opinion, not knowledge and
certainty. This way of getting and improving our knowledge in substances only by experience and history, which
is all that the weakness of our faculties in this state of mediocrity which we are in in this world can attain to,
makes me suspect that natural philosophy is not capable of being made a science. We are able, I imagine, to reach
very little general knowledge concerning the species of bodies and their several properties. Experiments and
historical observations we may have, from which we may draw advantages of ease and health, and thereby
increase our stock of conveniences for this life; but beyond this I fear our talents reach not, nor are our faculties,
as I guess, able to advance.
