[vi] NOTE C. 



the ancients : for that age, though with respect to us it be an 

 cient and greater, yet with regard to the world, it was new and 

 less. And as we justly expect a greater knowledge of things, 

 and a riper judgment, from a man of years than from a youth, 

 on account of the greater experience, and the greater variety 

 and number of things seen, heard, and thought of, by the per 

 son in years ; so might much greater matters be justly expected 

 from the present age, (if it knew but its own strength, and 

 would make trial and apply,) than from former times ; as this is 

 the more advanced age of the world, and now enriched and 

 furnished with infinite experiments and observations.&quot; 



Sir Henry Wotton, in his answer to Bacon s presentation of 

 the Novum Organum, says, &quot; of your Novum Organum I shall 

 speak more hereafter; but I have learnt thus much already by 

 it, that we are extremely mistaken in the computation of anti 

 quity by searching it backwards ; because, indeed, the first 

 times were the youngest.&quot; 



In Clarendon s Essays, there is an Essay upon the Reve 

 rence due to Antiquity, in which he says, &quot; If wisdom and un 

 derstanding be to be found with the ancient, and in length of 

 days, that time is the oldest from which men appeal to the in 

 fancy of the world ; and this advances more the veneration that 

 is always due to the grey hairs of the aged, who must be pre 

 sumed to know more than the young; who likewise shall have 

 much to answer, if, when they come to be old, they do not 

 know more, and judge better, than they could who were old be 

 fore them. And this is the best way to preserve the reverence 

 that is due to age, by doping and believing that the next age 

 may know more and be better, than that in which we live; and 

 not to rob that of the respect that will still be due to antiquity, 

 by unreasonably imputing it to the time which we have out 

 lived.&quot; 



And it seems, that the same sentiment extended to the 

 throne, for in Clarendon s Life, vol. iii. fo. 605, speaking of 

 Charles II. he says. &quot; The first objection was the novelty, 

 which, in cases of that nature, was very dangerous, &c. The 



