BOOK I. j HUMAN INTELLECT OVERRATED. M 



formed, so knowledge, whilst it lies in aphorisms and obser 

 vations, remains in a growing state ; but when once fashioned 

 into methods, though it may be farther polished, illustrated, 

 and fitted for use, it no longer increases in bulk and 

 substance. 



Another error is, that after the distribution of particular 

 arts and sciences, men generally abandon the study of nature, 

 or universal philosophy, which stops all farther progress. 

 For as no perfect view of a country can be taken upon a 

 flat, so it is impossible to discover the remote and deep parts 

 of any science by standing upon the level of the same 

 science, or without ascending to a higher. 



A nother error proceeds from too great a reverence, and a 

 kind of adoration paid to the human understanding; whence 

 men have withdrawn themselves from the contemplation of 

 nature and experience, and sported with their own reason 

 and the fictions of fancy. These intellectualists, though 

 commonly taken for the most sublime and divine philosophers, 

 are censured by Heraclitus, when he says, &quot; Men seek for 

 truth in their own little worlds, and not in the great world 

 without them :&quot; fc and as they disdain to spell, they can never 

 come to read in the volume of God s works ; but on the con 

 trary, by continual thought and agitation of wit, they compel 

 their own genius to divine and deliver oracles, whereby they 

 are deservedly deluded. 



Another error is, that men often infect their speculations 

 and doctrines with some particular opinions they happen to 

 be fond of, or the particular sciences whereto they have most 

 applied, and thence give all other things a tincture that is 

 utterly foreign to them. Thus Plato mixed philosophy with 

 theology ; u Aristotle with logic ; Proclus with mathematics; 



* Text Empir. against St. Math. vii. 133. 



u If it is true that God is the great spring of motion in the universe, 

 n&amp;lt;* the theory of moving forces is a part of mechanics and mechanics a 

 department of physics, we cannot see how theology can be entirely 

 divorced from natural philosophy. Physicists are too apt to consider 

 tha universe as eternally existing, without contemplating it in its finite 

 aspect as a series of existences to be produced, and controlled by the 

 force of laws externally impressed upon them. Henoe their theory of 

 moving forces is incomplete, as they do not take the prime mover into 

 account, or supply us, in case of denying him, with tho equivalent c.J 

 his action. Ed. 



