98 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



crees of nature, which would have held out to thee not only 

 art short, but also life long. And now, having passed sen 

 tence against Paracelsus, I perceive the rest of the chymists 

 fixed in astonishment. They immediately acknowledge his 

 decrees, which he himself promulgated rather than estab 

 lished, and fortified by arrogance (plainly not after the 

 ancient discipline), instead of caution ; when, indeed, these 

 men, reconciled to each by much reciprocation of lying, 

 every where hold forth abundant hope, and wandering 

 through the by-ways indeed of experience, do at times, by 

 chance, not conduct, hit upon some things useful. Yet in 

 their theories they (as disciples of the furnace) have not 

 withdrawn from their art. But, as that wanton youth, 

 when he discovered a boat upon the shore, sought to build 

 a ship ; so these coalmen, from a few experiments of distil 

 lations, have attempted to erect a philosophy, which is 

 everywhere obnoxious to those most absurd idols of separa 

 tions and liberations. Yet I count them not all alike ; for 

 as much as there is a useful sort of them, who, not very 

 solicitous about theories, do by a kind of mechanic subtlety 

 lay hold of the extensions of things ; such is Bacon. There 

 is a base and detestable sort, who everywhere seek applause 

 for their theories, by religion, hope, imposture, wooing, and 

 supplicating for it ; such is Isaac Hollandus, and by far 

 the greater part of the rabble of chymists. And now let 

 us summon Hippocrates, the creature of antiquity and the 

 seller of years, to whose authority, when both Galen and 

 Paracelsus with much zeal strive to betake themselves, as 

 to the shadow of the ass, who bursts not into laughter ? 

 And truly this man seems to cling to experience with per 

 petual steadfast looking, yet with eyes not moving and in 

 quiring, but stupid and enfeebled. Afterwards, his sight 

 recovering somewhat from the stupor, he receives certain 

 idols, not indeed those huge idols of theories, but the more 

 elegant which encompass the superficies of history; on 

 swallowing which swelling, and half a sophist, and (after 

 the manner of his age) sheltered by brevity, he at length 

 (as these two think) sets forth his oracles, of which they 

 seek to be esteemed the interpreters; while in reality he 

 does nothing but either deliver certain sophistications in 

 sentences abrupt and suspended, thus withdrawing them 

 from confutation ; or invest with stateliness the observations 

 of rustics. And nearest (as is commonly believed) to his 

 precepts, which are not so unsound as useless, approaches 

 Cornelius Celsus, but a more intense sophist, and more 



