PREFACE 1 



ing the matter, has tended more to confirm errors, than to 

 disclose truth. Our only remaining hope and salvation is 

 to begin the whole labor of the mind again; not leaving 

 it to itself, but directing it perpetually from the very first, 

 and attaining our end as it were by mechanical aid. If 

 men, for instance, had attempted mechanical labors with 

 their hands alone, and without the power and aid of instru 

 ments, as they have not hesitated to carry on the labors 

 of their understanding with the unaided efforts of their 

 mind, they would have been able to move and overcome 

 but little, though they had exerted their utmost and united 

 powers. And just to pause awhile on this comparison, 

 and look into it as a mirror; let us ask, if any obelisk of 

 a remarkable size were perchance required to be moved, 

 for the purpose of gracing a triumph or any similar pag 

 eant, and men were to attempt it with their bare hands, 

 would not any sober spectator avow it to be an act of the 

 greatest madness? And if they should increase the num 

 ber of workmen, and imagine that they could thus succeed, 

 would he not think so still more ? But if they chose to make 

 a selection, and to remove the weak, and only employ the 

 strong and vigorous, thinking by this means, at any rate, 

 to achieve their object, would he not say that they were 

 more fondly deranged? Nay, if not content with this, they 

 were to determine on consulting the athletic art, and were 

 to give orders for all to appear with their hands, arms, and 

 muscles regularly oiled and prepared, would he not exclaim 

 that they were taking pains to rave by method and design ? 

 Yet men are hurried on with the same senseless energy and 

 useless combination in intellectual matters, as long as they 

 expect great results either from the number and agreement, 

 or the excellence and acuteness of their wits; or even 



