108 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



kind. That restless craving after novelty, which 

 distinguished the Greeks in their civil and political 

 relations, pursued them into their philosophy. What- 

 ever speculations were only ingenious and new had 

 irresistible charms; and the teacher who could em- 

 body a clever thought in elegant language, or at 

 once save his followers and himself the trouble of 

 thinking or reasoning, by bold assertion, was too 

 often induced to acquire cheaply the reputation of 

 superior knowledge, snatch a few superficial notions 

 from the most ordinary and obvious facts, envelope 

 them in a parade of abstruse words, declare them 

 the primary and ultimate principles of all things, 

 and denounce as absurd and impious all opinions 

 opposed to his own. 



(100.) In this war of words the study of nature 

 was neglected, and an humble and patient enquiry 

 after facts altogether despised, as unworthy of the 

 high priori ground a true philosopher ought to take. 

 It was the radical error of the Greek philosophy to 

 imagine that the same method which proved so emi- 

 nently successful in mathematical, would be equally 

 so in physical, enquiries, and that, by setting out 

 from a few simple and almost self-evident notions, or 

 axioms, every thing could be reasoned out. Accord- 

 ingly, we find them constantly straining their inven- 

 tion to discover these principles, which were to prove 

 so pregnant. One makes fire the essential matter 

 and origin of the universe; another, air; a third, 

 discovers the key to every difficulty, and the ex- 

 planation of all phenomena, in the " TO antipov" or 

 infinitude of things; a fourth, in the TO fa and 

 the TO w fr, that is to say, in entity and nonentity; 



