INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 121 



to be charged to my account. If this be so, I must see, in 

 good sooth, that I detain you not over long.&quot; With these 

 words he sate down, not on an elevated seat or academic 

 chair, but on a level with the rest, and discoursed to the 

 assembly, somewhat to the following effect. For my in 

 formant said, that he tried as he might to catch up the ad 

 dress, but while going over his remembrances of it with the 

 friend who had introduced him, they seemed far short of 

 what had then been spoken. He then produced a specimen 

 of the speech which he had taken down, and which he had 

 then about him. 



&quot; My sons, ye are doubtless but men and mortal, yet 

 will ye not so much repine at the terms of your being, if ye 

 sufficiently remember your nature. God the creator of the 

 world and of you, has endowed you with souls to contain 

 that world, and yet remain unfilled and unsatisfied. Where 

 fore he has claimed your faith for himself, but the world 

 he hath submitted to your sense ; and hath decreed that 

 the oracles of both should not be clear, but ambiguous, so 

 as profitably to exercise you, and to balance the excellency 

 of the things discovered. Now as regards truths divine 

 my hope of you is good : but as concerns things human I 

 am in fear for you, lest you be involved in a train of endless 

 errors. For I consider, that you are intimately persuaded 

 of one thing, namely, that you now enjoy a flourishing 

 and auspicious state of science. I on the other hand ad 

 monish you, not to regard the copiousness or utility of the 

 knowledge you possess, as if you had been exalted to some 

 pinnacle of superiority, or tyad satisfied your aspirations, 

 or completed your labours. Revolve the matter thus : 



&quot; If you take to task the whole of that huge congeries of 

 writings wherewith the sciences are so puffed out and over 

 grown, and mark them with a strict and sifting scrutiny, 

 you shall every where note infinite repetitions of the same 

 thing, diversified in words, arrangement, examples, and 

 illustrations, yet in the sum and weight and real effect of 

 things all anticipated, and manifestly only repetitions, so as 

 there is at once poverty and parade, arrogance and miser 

 able jejuneness. And if I may be allowed a colloquial ease 

 and pleasantry on this subject, this learning of yours very 

 much resembles the well known supper of the host of 

 Chalcis, who being asked whence he had such store of 

 different hunter s fare : answered that all his dishes were 

 of the flesh of a tame boar. For you will not deny that 

 the whole of that seeming copiousness is nothing but frag- 



