53© C>/z the Fate and CharaiJcr 



which, like meteors, blazed in the regions of learning for a 

 time, but, like fuch meteors, not derivnig from true and per- 

 manent light, from proper fources, were Toon extinguiftied. 



Truth, however, was purfued with great energy, occulta 

 •velut arbcr iri arvo, in the (ludies and labours of thofe few 

 votaries of it who were called mathematicians ; and many de- 

 tached unconnefted difcoveries were made, which hardly ven- 

 tured to fhow thcmfclves, or, where they did, were imputed 

 to magic. 



At length, after many agesof darknefs, Roger Bacon, that 

 great luminary, was born in 1214. He, like another So- 

 crates, in the fpirit of truth, in the analytic line of true 

 knowledge, endeavoured to (late the hnpedimenta fcunti^s^ 

 the Caujas ignorantice, and to remove all the ob(lru£lions 

 which Ihut up the road to truth : he then, explaining by 

 faft and example the Utd'itas J'cientiamm, advanced, by an 

 experimental invelVigation of nature, and by an analyfis of 

 truth, to his ReJIauratio bumani iiitelledus, and his Injiauratia 

 Jcieniics. 



Reafoningj however, above the fcale of the learning of the 

 age in which he lived, his doilrines were neither underftood 

 nor received ; and, where they could not be reprcfled by the 

 learning of the time, they luere interdiSied by the ruling au- 

 thority of it. Although the truths which he difcovered, and 

 endeavoured to difclole to the world, were liftened to by 

 feveral men of knowledge, and fome of them in power *, and 

 though thev were received even by the J'upreme f authority, 

 held infallible; yet, bv a Jin againjl the holy fpirit of truth y 

 they were unacknowledged, and fulfercd to languifli in ob- 

 fcurity. Thev, with the teacher, were delivered over to per- 

 fecution ; truth was extinguiflied, and the difcoverer and 

 teacher imprifoned for the crimes of magic and herefy. 



Here ag^in, on the ftage of this world, was truth devoted 

 to filence and darknefs, and the difcoverer and teacher of it 

 thrown back into obfcurity, and his doftrines loft in oblivion, 

 except what ignorance rakes up to memory in difgraceful 

 tales of tradition. The fircam, therefore, of this original 

 fpring, whence the knowledge of latter times derives its fource, 

 ran, like the Rhone, concealed and unknown for three or 

 four centiuies; whllft in the mean time various empirics 

 in philofophy, various bafelcfs theories, (amidft which the 

 ingenious fables of Dcfcartes more efjiecialiy,) took the lead 

 and afcenclancv in the learning of the world. This dream, 

 h'j'.v"v(.'r, like the Rhone, emerged again to light on the face 



' Bifh >[) Grortli'.H<l. t Hv the Pope. 



t ' of 



