BOOK 1.J APHORISMS. 421 



fantastical fellows who, from credulity or imposture, have loaded 

 maiiind witk promises, announcing and boasting of the pro- 

 longation of life, the retarding of old age, the alleviation of pains, 

 the remedying of natural defects, the deception of the senses, the 

 restraint and excitement of the passions, the illumination and 

 exaltation of the intellectual faculties, the transmutation of sub- 

 stances, the unlimited intensity and multiplication of motion, the 

 impressions and changes of the air, the bringing into our power 

 the management of celestial influences, the divination of future 

 events, the representation of distant objects, the revelation of 

 hidden objects, and the like. One would not be very wrong in 

 observing with regard to such pretenders, that there is as mucli 

 diflerence in philosophy, between their absurdity and real sci- 

 ence, as there is in history between the exploits of Caesar or 

 Alexander, and those of Amadis de Gaul and Arthur of Britain. 

 For those illustrious generals are found to have actually per- 

 formed greater exploits than such fictitious heroes are even pre- 

 tended to have accomplished, by the means, however, of real 

 action, and not by any fabulous and portentous power. Yet it 

 is not right to suffer our belief in true history to be diminished, 

 because it is sometimes injured and violated by fables. In the 

 mean time we cannot wonder that great prejudice has been ex- 

 cited against any new propositions (especially when coupled with 

 any mention of effects to be produced), by the conduct of impos- 

 tors who have made a similar attempt ; for their extreme absur- 

 dity, and the disgust occasioned by it, has even to this day over- 

 powered every spirited attempt of the kind. 



LXXXVIII. Want of energy, and the littleness and futility 

 of the tasks that human industry has undertaken, have produced 

 much greater injury to the sciences: and yet (to make it still 

 worse) that very want of energy manifests itself in conjunction 

 with arrogance and disdain. 



For, in the first place, one excuse, now from its repetition 

 become familiar, is to be observed in every art, namely, that its 

 promoters convert the weakness of the art itself into a calumny 

 »3pon nature : and whatever it in their hands fails to effect, ihoy 

 pronounce to be physically impossible. But how can the art 

 ever be condemned whilst it acts as judge in its own cause P 

 Even the present system of philosophy cherishes in its bosom 

 certain positions or dogmas, which (it will be found on diligent 

 inquiry) are calculated to produce a full conviction that no difii- 

 eult, commanding, and powerful operation upon nature ought to 

 be anticipated through the means of art ; we instanced* above 

 the alleged different quality of heat in the sun and fire, and 

 composition and mixture. Upon an accurate obg^rvation Xh9 



»» See Axiom 7fi' 



