Perform experiments on the vacuum with the instrument and otherwise and determine the weight of air.

Examine the explosive force of gunpowder enclosed, in small quantities, in an iron or very thick copper box.

Examine in the same manner the force of water rarified by fire.

Examine the force and speed of wind and the uses drawn from it for navigation and in machines.

Examine the force of percussion or the communication of motion in the impact of bodies, concerning which I believe I have been the first to provide true principles.

The principal occupation of the Company, and the most useful should be, in my judgment, to employ itself with natural history in following more or less the design of Bacon. This history consists of experiments and observations and is the sole means of arriving at knowledge of the causes of all that one sees in nature. As for knowing the nature of weight, heat, cold, magnetic attraction, light, colors, the composition of air, water, fire, and all other bodies, to what purpose is animal respiration, in what fashion metals, stones, and plants grow; of all these matters little or nothing is yet known, yet nothing in the world of knowledge is more desired or useful.

It would be necessary, in pursuing the several varied topics I have just named, to divide the chapters of this history, and to collect there all the observations and experiments concerning each particular one; for it is not as necessary to take such pains in recounting there obscure and difficult experiments, as on those which appear essential in order to discover the object sought, for even these are very ordinary.

The utility of such a faithfully prepared history extends to the whole of human kind and for centuries to come, for in addition to gains derived from particular experiments for various purposes, the entire collection forever remains a solid foundation for the construction of a natural philosophy, in which it is essential to proceed from the knowledge of effects to that of the causes.

Chemistry and the dissection of animals are certainly necessary to this design, but it is necessary that the operations of these two subjects both always extend to enlarge this history in some important conclusion, directed toward the discovery of something proposed, without losing time to many of the very same observations concerning circumstances from which knowledge cannot follow. This is so as not to incur the reproach which Seneca made to the ancient philosophers, "That they might perhaps have discovered unavoidable things had they had not sought the superfluous."

It would be necessary to begin with topics one will judge most elegant and useful, assigning several at a time to various persons composing the assembly, who each week will report and read what they will have collected, and thus it will be an orderly business, the fruits of which will doubtless be very great.

Huygens