100 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 



would have been wandered over. For an immense ocean 

 encompasses the island of truth ; and men have still to 

 endure new damages and scatterings from the winds of 

 idols. Nay, even two or three days ago Bernardinus Tele- 

 sius mounted the stage, and enacted a new play, neither 

 frequent in applause, nor elegant in argument. Dost thou 

 not observe, my son, that the contrivers both of eccentrics 

 and of epicycles, and the charioteers of the earth, delight in 

 the impartial and ambiguous advocation of phenomena ? 

 It is exactly so in universal theories. For as if any one, 

 knowing only the use of his vernacular tongue, (attend, my 

 son, for this is very similar), undertake to write an un 

 known speech, in which, observing some few words ap 

 proaching in sound and letters to those of his own lan 

 guage, he immediately and confidently assumes them to be 

 of the same signification (though more frequently far 

 removed from it); then, by collating these together, with 

 much labour of ingenuity but also much liberty, he divines 

 the remaining sense of the oration ; altogether such also 

 are those interpreters of nature found to be. For each 

 bringing his idols (I speak not now of those of the stage, 

 but especially of the market and of the den), like diverse 

 vernacular tongues, to history, immediately seizes the 

 things which sound somewhat alike ; from the symmetry 

 of these the rest are interpreted. And now it is time, my 

 son, for us to recover and purge ourselves, seeing we have 

 been handling (though with purpose of importing) things 

 so profane and polluted. But against all these I have said 

 less than their guilt deserved. Yet perhaps thou com- 

 prehendest not this censure. For be assured, my son, the 

 judgment I have pronounced against them is nothing less 

 than contumely. For I have not conducted myself like 

 Velleius with Cicero, a declaimer and philologist cursorily 

 touching opinions, and rather casting them away than des 

 troying them ; or like Agrippa the modern, in speech of 

 that kind not to be named indeed, but a trivial buffoon, 

 distorting every thing and holding it out to ridicule (un 

 happy me who in defect of men am forced to compare my 

 self with brutes!). But on looking back afterwards thou 

 wilt discern, under the veil of reproach, wondrous airs of 

 accusations, with singular art contracted and reduced 

 almost to single words, and with keenest glance directed and 

 brandished against the very ulcers themselves of offence. 

 And when they mighthave been much mingled and entangled 

 together in their crimes and guilt, I have by their most pecu- 



