86 LETTERS FROM THE CABALA. 



probations, it is no more upon the matter, but to incite us 

 unto that which, without instigation, by a natural instinct 

 men will practise of themselves ; for it cannot in reason be 

 otherwise thought, but that there are infinite, in all parts of 

 the world, (for we may not in this case confine our cogita 

 tions within the bounds of Europe) which embrace the 

 course which you purpose, with all diligence and care, that 

 any ability can perform. For every man is born with an 

 appetite of knowledge, wherewith he cannot be glutted, but 

 still as in a dropsy, thirst after more. But yet, why men 

 should so hearken to any such persuasions, as wholly to 

 abolish those settled opinions, and general theorems, to 

 which they have attained by their own and their ancestors 

 experience, I see nothing alleged to induce me to think it. 

 Moreover, 1 may speak, as I suppose, with good probability, 

 that if we should make a mental survey, what is like to be 

 effected all the world over ; those five or six inventions 

 which you have selected, and imagined to be but of modem 

 standing, would make but a slender shew among so many 

 hundreds of all kinds of natures, which are daily brought to 

 light by the enforcement of wit or casual events, and may 

 be compared, or partly preferred, above those that you have 

 named. But were it so here, that all were admitted that 

 you can require, for the augmentation of our knowledge, and 

 that all our theorems and general positions were utterly ex 

 tinguished with a new substitution of others in their places, 

 what hope may we have of any benefit of learning by this 

 alteration I assuredly, as soon as the new are brought a d a-n^v 

 by the inventors and their followers, by an interchangeable 

 course of natural things, they will fall by degrees in oblivion 

 to be buried, and so in continuance to perish outright; and 

 that perchance upon the like to your present pretences, by 

 proposal of some means to advance all our knowledge to a 

 higher pitch of perfectness ; for still the same defects that 

 antiquity found, will reside in mankind, and therefore other 



