84 LETTERS FROM THE CABALA. 



and was always by the wisest (as still they have been 

 deemed) of all nations and ages, adjudged the truest ; 

 yet it is apparent, in those very points, in all your pro 

 posals and plots in that book, you shew yonrself a master 

 workman For myself, I must confess, and I speak it 

 ingenue, that for the matter of learning, I am not worthy 

 to be reckoned in the number of smatterers ; and yet, 

 because it may seem that being willing to communicate 

 your treatise with your friends, you are likewise willing 

 to listen to whatsoever I or others can except against it; 

 I must deliver unto you, for my private opinion, that 

 I am one of the crew, that say there is, and we profess 

 a greater holdfast of certainty in your sciences, than you 

 by your discourse will seem to acknowledge: for where, 

 at first, you do object the ill success and errors of prac 

 titioners of physic, you know as well, they do proceed of 

 the patient s unruliness, for not one of an hundred doth 

 obey his physician in their own indisposition ; for few are 

 able in that kind to explicate themselves ; or by reason 

 their diseases are by nature incurable, which is incident, 

 you know, to many sort of maladies ; or for some other 

 hidden cause, which cannot be discovered by course of 

 conjecture; howbeit, I am full of this belief, that as 

 physic is ministered now-a-days by physicians, it is much 

 ascribed to their negligence or ignorance, or other touch of 

 imperfection, that they speed no better in their practice : for 

 few are found, of that profession, so well instructed in their 

 art, as they might by the precepts which their art doth afford ; 

 which though it be defective in regard of such perfection, yet 

 for certain it doth flourish with admirable remedies, such as 

 tract of time hath taught by experimental effects, and 

 are the open high-way to that knowledge that you re 

 commend. As for alchemy, and magic, some conclusions 

 they have that are worthy the preserving : but all their skill 

 is so accompanied with subtilties and guiles, as both the crafts 



