4 THE GREAT INSTAURATIOK. 



leader, like those silent senators of Rome, a they add nothing 

 to the extent of learning themselves, but perform the servile 

 duty of waiting upon particular authors, and repeating their 

 doctrines. 



It is a fatal mistake to suppose that the sciences have 

 gradually arrived at a state of perfection, and then been 

 recorded by some one writer or other ; and that as nothing 

 better can afterwards be invented, men need but cultivate 

 and set off what is thus discovered and completed ; whereas, 

 in reality, this registering of the sciences proceeds only from 

 the assurance of a few and the sloth and ignorance of many. 

 For after the sciences might thus perhaps in several parts 

 be carefully cultivated ; a man of an enterprising genius 

 rising up, who, by the conciseness of his method, renders 

 himself acceptable and famous, he in appearance erects an 

 art, but in reality corrupts the labours of his predecessors. 

 This, however, is usually well received by posterity, as 

 readily gratifying their curiosity, and indulging their indo 

 lence. But he that rests upon established consent as the 

 judgment approved by time, trusts to a very fallacious and 

 weak foundation ; for we have but an imperfect knowledge 

 of the discoveries in arts and sciences, made public in diffe 

 rent ages and countries, and still less of what has been done 

 by particular persons, and transacted in private; so that 

 neither the births nor miscarriages of time are to be found 

 in our records. 



Nor is consent, or the continuance thereof, a thing of any 

 account ; for however governments may vary, there is but 

 one state of the sciences, and that will for ever be democratic^] 

 or popular. But the doctrines in greatest vogue among the 

 people, are either the contentious and quarrelsome, or the 

 showy and empty ; that is, such as may either entrap the 

 assent, or lull the mind to rest : whence, of course, the 

 greatest geniuses in all ages have suffered violence ; whilst 

 out of regard to their own character, they submitted to the 

 judgment of the times, and the populace. And tlus when 

 any more sublime speculations happened to appear, they were 

 ix&amp;gt;mmonly tossed and extinguished by the breath of popular 

 opinion. Hence time, like a river, has brought down to ut 



* Pedarii senntore&. 



