Dedication 7 



maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than 

 all that still remains unknown ; nor do philosophers 

 pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that 

 they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to 

 the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do 

 they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity, 

 that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert 

 their friend Truth. But even as they see that the 

 credulous and vain are disposed at the first blush to 

 accept and to believe everything that is proposed to 

 them, so do they observe that the dull and unintel- 

 lectual are indisposed to see what lies before their 

 eyes, and even to deny the light of the noonday 

 sun. They teach us in our course of philosophy as 

 sedulously to avoid the fables of the poets and the 

 fancies of the vulgar, as the false conclusions of 

 the sceptics. And then the studious, and good, and 

 true, never suffer their minds to be warped by the 

 passions of hatred and envy, which unfit men duly 

 to weigh the arguments that are advanced in behalf 

 of truth, or to appreciate the proposition that is even 

 fairly demonstrated ; neither do they think it unworthy 

 of them to change their opinion if truth and un- 

 doubted demonstration require them so to do ; nor 

 do they esteem it discreditable to desert error, though 

 sanctioned by the highest antiquity ; for they know 

 full well that to err, to be deceived, is human ; that 

 many things are discovered by accident, and that many 

 may be learned indifferently from any quarter, by an 



