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pleases the multitude, unless it strike the imagination or bind 

 down the understanding, as we have observed above, with the 

 shackles of vulgar notions. Hence we may well transfer Pho- 

 cion's remark from morals to the intellect : " That men should 

 immediately examine what error or fault they have committed, 

 when the multitude concurs with, and applauds them." This 

 then is one of the most unfavorable signs. All the signs, there- 

 fore, of the truth and soundness of the received systems of 

 philosophy and the sciences are unpropitious, whether taken 

 from their origin, their fruits, their progress, the confessions of 

 their authors, or from unanimity. 



78. We now come to the causes of errors,c and of such per- 

 severance in them for ages. These are sufficiently numerous 

 and powerful to remove all wonder, that what we now offer 

 should have so long been concealed from, and have escaped the 

 notice of mankind, and to render it more worthy of astonish- 

 ment, that it should even now have entered any one's mind, or 

 become the subject of his thoughts ; and that it should have 

 done so, we consider rather the gift of fortune than of any ex- 

 traordinary talent, and as the offspring of time rather than^vit. 

 But, in the first place, the number of ages is reduced to very nar- 

 row limits, on a proper consideration of the matter. For out of 

 twenty-five centuries, with which the memory and learning of 

 man are conversant, scarcely six can be set apart and selected 

 as fertile in science and favorable to its progress. For there are 

 deserts and wastes in times as in countries, and we can only 

 reckon up three revolutions and epochs of philosophy, i. The 

 Greek. 2. The Roman. 3. Our own, that is the philosophy 

 of the western nations of Europe : and scarcely two centuries 

 can with justice be assigned to each. The intermediate ages of 

 the world were unfortunate both in the quantity and richness of 

 the sciences produced. Nor need we mention the Arabs, or the 

 scholastic philosophy, which, in those ages, ground down 

 the sciences by their numerous treatises, more than they in- 

 creased their weight. The first cause, then, of such insignifi- 

 cant progress in the sciences, is rightly referred to the small pro- 

 portion of time which has been favorable thereto. 



79. A second cause offers itself, which is certainly of the 

 greatest importance ; namely, that in those very ages in which 

 men's wit and literature flourished considerably, or even mod- 

 erately, but a small part of their industry was bestowed on nat- 

 ural philosophy, the great mother of the sciences. For every 

 art and science torn from this root may, perhaps, be polished, 

 and put into a serviceable shape, but can admit of little growth. 

 It is well known, that after the Christian religion had been ac- 

 knowledged, and arrived at maturity, by far the best wits were 

 busied upon theology, where the highest rewards offered them- 



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