do some few Things as Postulata which are so very plain that they will be assented to as soon as they are proposed 1. That all Men who make a Mystery of Matters of Learning and industriously oblige their Scholars to conceal their Dictates give the World great Reason to suspect that their Knowledge is all Juggling and Trick 2. That he that has only a Moral Persuasion of the Truth of any Proposition which is capable of Natural Evidence cannot so properly be esteemed the Inventor or the Discoverer rather of that Proposition as another Man who tho' he lived many Ages after brings such Evidences of its Certainty as are sufficient to convince all competent Judges especially when his Reasonings are founded upon Observations and Experiments drawn from and made upon the Things themselves 3. That no Pretences to greater Measures of Knowledge grounded upon Account of Long Successions of Learned Men in any Country ought to gain Belief when set against the Learning of other Nations who make no such Pretences unless Inventions and Discoveries answerable to those Advantages be produced by their Advocates 4. That we cannot judge of Characters of Things and Persons at a great Distance when given at Second-hand unless we knew exactly how capable those Persons from whom such Characters were first taken were to pass a right Judgment upon such subjects and also the particular Motives that biassed them to pass such Censures If Archimedes should upon his own Knowledge speak with Admiration of the Egyptian Geometry his Judgment would be very considerable But if he should speak respectfully of it only because Pythagoras did so before him it might perhaps signifie but very little 5. That excessive Commendations of any Art or Science whatsoever as also of the Learning of any particular Men or Nations only prove that the Persons who give such Characters never heard of any Thing or Person that was more excellent in that Way and therefore that Admiration may be as well supposed to proceed from their own Ignorance as from the real Excellency of the Persons or Things unless their respective Abilities are otherwise known CHAP. VIII Of the Learning of Pythagoras and the most Ancient Philosophers of Greece IN my Enquiries into the Progress of Learning during its obscurer Ages or those at least which are so to us at this Distance I shall begin with the Accounts which are given of the Learning of Pythagoras rather than those of the more Ancient Grecian Sages because his School made a much greater Figure in the World than any of those which preceded Plato and Aristotle In making a Judgment upon the Greatness of his Performances from the Greatness of his Reputation one ought to consider how near to his Time those lived whose express Relations of his Life are the oldest we have Diogenes Laërtius is the ancientest Author extant that has purposely written the Life of Pythagoras According to Menagius's Calculations he lived in M. Antoninus's Time And all that we learn from Diogenes is only that we know very little certainly about Pythagoras He cites indeed great Numbers of Books but those so very disagreeing in their Relations that a Man is confounded with their Variety Besides the Grecians magnified every Thing that they commended so much that it is hard to guess how far they may be believed when they write of Men and Actions at any Distance from their own Time Graecia Mendax was almost proverbial amongst the Romans But by what appears from the Accounts of the Life of Pythagoras he is rather to be ranked among the Law-givers with Lycurgus and Solon and his own two Disciples Zaleucus and Charondas than amongst those who really carried Learning to any considerable heighth Therefore as some other Legislators had or pretended to have Super-natural Assistances that they might create a Regard for their Laws in the People to whom they gave them so Pythagoras found out several Equivalents which did him as much Service He is said indeed to have lived many Years in Egypt and to have conversed much with the Philofophers of the East but if he invented the XLVIIth Proposition in the First Book of Euclid which is unanimously ascribed to him by all Antiquity one can hardly have a profound Esteem for the Mathematical Skill of his Masters It is indeed a very noble Proposition the Foundation of Trigonometry of universal and various Use in those curious Speculations of Incommensurable Numbers which his Disciples from him and from them the Platonists so exceedingly admired But this shews the Infancy of Geometry in his Days in that very Country which claims the Glory of Inventing it to her self It is probable indeed that the Egyptians might find it out but then we ought also to take notice that it is the only very considerable Instance of the real Learning of Pythagoras that is preserved Which is the more observable because the Pythagoreans paid the greatest Respect to their Master of any Sect whatsoever and so we may be sure that we should have heard much more of his Learning if much more could have been said And though the Books of Hermippus and Aristoxenus are lost yet Laërtius who had read them and Porphyry and Jamblichus Men of great Reading and diffuse Knowledge who after Diogenes wrote the Life of the same Pythagoras would not have omitted any material Thing of that kind if they had any where met with it Amongst his other Journies Sir William Temple mentions Pythagoras's Journy to Delphos Here by the by I must beg leave to put Sir William Temple in mind of a small Mistake that he commits in the Word Delphos both here and pag. 13. when he speaks of Thales In both Places he says that Pythagoras and Thales travelled to Delphos He might as well have said that they travelled to Aegyptum and Phoeniciam and Cretam It should be printed therefore in his next Edition to Phoenicia and Delphi For the English use the Nominative Cases of old Names when they express them in their Mother Tongue But setting that aside what this makes to his purpose is not easie to guess Apollo's Priestesses are not famous for discovering Secrets in Natural or Mathematical Matters and as for Moral Truths they might as well be known without going thither to fetch them Van Daleu in his Discourses of the Heathen Oracles has endeavoured to prove that they were only Artifices of the Priests who gave such Answers to Enquirers as they desired when they had either Power or Wealth to back their Requests If Van Daleu's Hypothesis be admitted it will strengthen my Notion of Pythagoras very much since when he did not care to live any longer in Samos because of Polycrates's Tyranny and was desirous to establish to himself a lasting Reputation for Wisdom and Learning amongst the ignorant Inhabitants of Magna Graecia where he setled upon his Retirement he was willing to have them think that Apollo was of his Side That made him establish the Doctrine of
ever suffer the Egyptian Priests to reveal such a Secret to that conquered People Dioclesian according to them burnt all the Chymical Books that he could find in Egypt that the Egyptians might not rebel when they were deprived of that Fund which supported their Wars And Borrichius supposes that the Egyptian Priests used this Art chiefly to supply the Expences of their Kings 2. How came Jason and the Argonauts not to grow richer by this Fleece It cannot be pretended that it was concealed from them because it was like the Books of the Modern Adepti written in so obscure a Stile that it was unintelligible for want of a Master since Medea was with Jason who had the Secret what or how great soever it was 3. Since the Grecians were not tied to Secrecy how came their Traditions to be so obscure that those Passages in Apollonius Rhodius's Argonauticks which are supposed to be meant of the Grand Elixir were never applied to a Chymical Sense till the Writings of Synesius Zosimus and the other old Grecian Chymists appeared Especially since 4. Apollonius Rhodius himself was an Alexandrian Greek born in Egypt and so could easily acquaint himself with the Traditions of that Country which he originally of another Nation was under no Obligation to conceal 2. The Chymists at least Borrichius for them own Democritus's Books to be genuine upon the Credit of Zosimus who quotes them If they are this pretended Secrecy falls to the Ground For Democritus affirms That he learnt his Art from Ostanes a Mede who was sent by the Kings of Persia into Egypt as Governour of the Egyptian Priests Then the Secret was divulged to some of the Conquerours of their Country If so why no more Tradition of it If not the Process it self yet at least the Memory that once there was such a Process Which would have been enough for this Purpose The same Question may be asked of Democritus to whom Ostanes revealed it This will weaken Zosimus's Credit as an Antiquary upon whose Assertion most of this pretended Antiquity is founded Since at the same Time that he objects the Secrecy of the ancient Egyptian Priests as a Reason why the Memory of this Art was so little known he owns himself obliged to a Greek who had it from the Egyptians at Second Hand But how will these Pretenders to remote Antiquity who tell us that Moses by his Skill in Chymistry ground the Golden Calf to Powder reconcile a Passage in Theophrastus to their Pretensions He speaking of Quicksilver says that the Art of extracting it from Cinnabar was not known till 90 Years before his Time when it was first found out by Callias an Athenian Can we think that the Egyptians could hinder these inquisitive Grecians who staid so long in their Country from knowing that there was such a Metal as Mercury Or could these Egyptians make Gold without it If they could they might reasonably suppose that the Israelites could make Brick without Straw since they could make Gold and Silver without that which Modern Adepti affirm to be the Seed of all Metals Theophrastus's Words are too general to admit of an Objection as if he believed that Callias's Invention ought to be limited to his own Country This join'd to the great Silence of the Ancients especially Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus who dwell so long upon the Egyptian Arts and Learning concerning most of the wonderful Phaenomena of that extravagant Metal plainly shews that there were no Traditions of such mighty things to be done by it as the Alchemist's Books are full of Borrichius therefore recurrs to his old Subterfuge Egyptian Secrecy and finds some doubtful at least if not fabulous Stories of Daedalus and Icarus and the Poetical Age which he opposes to the positive Testimony of Theophrastus Perhaps this may be thought to be begging the Question since some who have written of the Philosophers Stone have taught that their Mercury has no Affinity with common Mercury Which has led many Persons to try several extravagant Processes to find it out But Eirenaeus Philalethes who is look'd upon as one of the clearest Writers that has ever written upon this Subject says expressly that Natural Mercury Philosophically prepared is the Philosophical Menstruum and the dissolvent Mercury After so long an Enquiry into the Antiquity of this Art of transmuting Metals it will be asked perhaps what may be thought of the Art it self I must needs say I cannot tell what Judgment to make of it The Pretences to Inspiration and that Enthusiastick Cant which run through the Writings of almost all the Alchemists seem so like Imposture that one would be tempted to think that it was only a Design carried on from Age to Age to delude Mankind and it is not easy to imagine why God should hear the Prayers of those that desire to be rich If as they pretend it was Zeal for the good of Mankind that made them take such Pains to find out such noble Medicines as should free Men from the most obstinate Diseases to which our Natures are subject why do they not communicate them and leave the Process in Writing plainly to Posterity if they are afraid of Danger for themselves Concern for the Welfare of Mankind and affected Secrecy seem here inconsistent things Men of such mortified Tempers and publick Spirits ought not to be concerned though Gold or Silver were made as common as Lead or Tin provided that the Elixir which should remove all Diseases were once known Though these are reasonable Prejudices against the Belief of the Truth of this Operation yet one can hardly tell how to contradict a Tradition so general and so very well attested So many Men methinks could not have cheated the World successfully so long if some had not been sincere And to use a Proverb in their own Way so much Smoak could scarce have lasted so long without some Fire Till the seminal Principles from which Metals are compounded are perfectly known the Possibility of the Operation cannot be disproved Which Principles as all other real Essences of things are concealed from us But as a wise Man cannot perhaps without Rashness disbelieve what is so confidently asserted so he ought not to spend much Time and Cost about trying whether it will succeed till some of the Adepti shall be so kind as to give him the Receipt By what has been said it is evident what Opinion one ought to have of the Chymical Skill of the ancient Egyptians Though it is most probable that the Art owes its Original to them from whom it receives its Name But this Original is much too late to do Sir William Temple's Hypothesis any Service But it is high Time to leave the Egyptian Physick and therefore I shall only add One or Two Instances of their Skill in Anatomy and so pass on Gellius and Macrobius observe the one from Appion who wrote of the Egyptians the other from the Egyptian Priests
Genuine Rules of Art that one would not expect in a Book of that kind In France since the Institution of the French Academy the Grammar of their own Language has been studied with great Care Isocrates himself could not be more nice in the Numbers of his Periods than these Academicians have been in setling the Phraseology in fixing the Standard of Words and in making their Sentences as well as they could numerous and flowing Their Dictionary of which a good Part is already printed Vaugelas's and Bouhours's Remarks upon the French Tongue Richelet's and Furetiere's Dictionaries with abundance of other Books of that kind which though not all written by Members of the Academy yet are all Imitations of the Patterns which they first set are Evidences of this their Care This Sir William Temple somewhere owns And though he there supposes that these Filers and Polishers may have taken away a great part of the Strength of the Tongue which in the main is true enough yet that is no Objection against their Critical Skill in Grammar upon which Account only their Labours are here taken notice of So much for the Mechanical Part of Grammar Philosophical Grammar was never that we know of much minded by the Ancients So that any great Performances of this sort are to be looked upon as Modern Increases to the Commonwealth of Learning The most considerable Book of that kind that I know of is Bishop Wilkins's Essay towards a Real Character and Philosophical Language A Work which those who have studied think they can never commend enough To this one ought to add what may be found relating to the same Subject in the Third Book of Mr. Lock 's Essay of Humane Understanding CHAP. VI. Of Ancient and Modern Architecture Statuary and Painting HItherto the Moderns seem to have had very little Reason to boast of their Acquisitions and Improvements Let us see now what they may have hereafter In those Arts sure if in any they may challenge the Preference which depending upon great Numbers of Experiments and Observations which do not every Day occurr cannot be supposed to be brought to Perfection in a few Ages Among such doubtless Architecture Sculpture and Painting may and ought here to be reckoned both because they were extreamly valued by the Ancients and do still keep up their just Price They are likewise very properly taken notice of in this Place because they have always been the Entertainments of Ingenious and Learned Men whose Circumstances would give them Opportunity to lay out Money upon them or to please themselves with other Men's Labours In these Things if we may take Men's Judgments in their own Professions the Ancients have far out-done the Moderns The Italians whose Performances have been the most considerable in this kind and who as Genuine Successors of the Old Romans are not apt to undervalue what they do themselves have for the most part given the uncontested Pre-eminence to the Ancient Greek Architects Painters and Sculptors Whose Authority we ought the rather to acquiesce in because Michael-Angelo and Bernini two wonderful Masters and not a little jealous of their Honour did always ingenuously declare that their best Pieces were exceeded by some of the ancient Statues still to be seen at Rome Here therefore I at first intended to have left off and I thought my self obliged to resign what I believed could not be maintained when Monsieur Perrault's Parallel of the Ancients and Moderns came to my Hands His Skill in Architecture and Mechanicks was sufficiently manifested long ago in his admirable Translation of and Commentaries upon Vitruvius And his long Conversation with the finest Pieces of Antiquity and of these Later Ages fitted him for judging of these Matters better than other Men. So that though there might be great Reason not to agree to his Hypothesis of the State of Ancient and Modern Eloquence and Poesie yet in Things of this Nature where the Mediums of Judging are quite different and where Geometrical Rules of Proportion which in their own Nature are unalterable go very far to determine the Question his Judgment seemed to be of great weight I shall therefore chuse rather to give a short View of what he says upon these Subjects than to pass any Censure upon them of my own Of Architecture he says That though the Moderns have received the Knowledge of the Five Orders from the Ancients yet if they employ it to better Purposes if their Buildings be more useful and more beautiful then they must be allowed to be the better Architects For it is in Architecture as it is in Oratory as he that lays down Rules when and how to use Metaphors Hyperbole's Prosopopoeia's or any other Figures of Rhetorick may very often not be so good an Orator as he that uses them judiciously in his Discourses So he that teaches what a Pillar an Architrave or a Cornice is and that instructs another in the Rules of Proportion so as to adjust all the Parts of each of the several Orders aright may not be so good an Architect as he that builds a magnificent Temple or a noble Palace that shall answer all those Ends for which such Structures are designed That the chief Reason why the Doric the Ionic or the Corinthian Models have pleased so much is partly because the Eye has been long accustomed to them and partly because they have been made use of by Men who understood and followed those other Rules which will eternally please upon the Score of real Usefulness whereas the Five Orders owe their Authority to Custom rather than to Nature That these Universal Rules are To make those Buildings which will bear it lofty and wide In Stone-work to use the largest the smoothest and the evenest Stones To make the Joints almost imperceptible To place the perpendicular Parts of the Work exactly Perpendicular and the Horizontal Parts exactly Horizontal To support the weak Parts of the Work by the strong to cut Square Figures perfectly Square and Round Figures perfectly Round To hew the whole exactly true and to fix all the Corners of the Work evenly as they ought to be That these Rules well observed will always please even those who never understood one single Term of Art Whereas the other accidental Beauties such as he supposes Doric Ionic or Corinthian Work to be please only because they are found together with these though their being the most conspicuous Parts of a Building made them be first observed From whence Men began to fansie Inherent Beauties in that which owes the greatest part of its Charms to the good Company in which it is taken notice of and so in time delighted when it was seen alone That otherwise it would be impossible that there should be so great a Variety in the Assigning of the Proportions of the several Orders no two eminent Architects ever keeping to the same Measure though they have neither spoiled nor lessened the Beauty of their Works That if we
often as much above the Author upon whom he tries his Skill as he that discerns another Man's Thoughts is therein greater than he that thinks And the Objection that is commonly made against Editors of old Books That every Man cries up his own Author beyond all that have ever wrote upon that Subject or in that Way will rarely hold of truly great Criticks when they pass their Judgments and employ their Thoughts upon indifferent Books since some have taken as much Pains in their Critical Annotations to expose Authors who have had the good Luck to be exceedingly commended by learned Men as ever others did to praise them Soon after Learning was restored when Copies of Books by Printing were pretty well multiplied Criticism began which first was exercised in Setting out Correct Editions of Ancient Books Men being forced to try to mend the Copies of Books which they saw were so very negligently written It soon became the Fashionable Learning and after Erasmus Budaeus Beatus Rhenanus and Turnebus had dispersed that sort of Knowledge through England France Germany and the Low-Countries which before had been kept altogether amongst the Italians it was for about One Hundred and Twenty Years cultivated with very great Care And if since it has been at a Stand it has not been because the Parts of Men are sunk but because the Subject is in a manner exhausted or at least so far drained that it requires more Labour and a greater Force of Genius now to gather good Gleanings than formerly to bring home a plentiful Harvest and yet this Age has produced Men who in the last might have been reckoned with the Scaligers and the Lipsius's It is not very long since Holstenius Bochart and Gerhard Vossius died but if they will not be allowed to have been of our Age yet Isaac Vossius Nicholas Heinsius Frederick Gronovius Ezekiel Spanheym and Graevius may come in the two last of them are still alive and the others died but a few Years since England perhaps cannot shew a proportionable Stock of Criticks of this Stamp In Henry VIII's Time there was an admirable Set of Philologers in the Nation though there is great difference to be made between a good Critick and a Man that writes Latin as easily and correctly as his Mother-Tongue Sir Thomas More Cardinal Poole Linacre Collet Cheek Ascham and several more often to be met with in Erasmus's Epistles wrote Latin with a Purity that no Italian needed then to have been ashamed of Let the Subject they wrote have been what it would one may see by the Purity of their Stile that they wrote in a Language which expressed their Thoughts without Constraint A great Familiarity with the politest Authors of Antiquity was what these Men valued themselves much upon and it was then the Delight of the Nation as much as their Disputes in Religion would give them Leave Though this seemed to sink by degrees yet that afterwards Critical Skill in Antiquity was valued and pursued by our learned Men will not be questioned by those who consider that Sir Henry Savile Mr. Cambden Archbishop Usher Mr. Selden Sir John Marsham Mr. Gataker not to mention some now alive whose Fame will one Day equal that of the Scaligers and the Grotius's of other Nations were the Glories of our Country as well as of the Age they lived in In short to conclude this Argument Though Philological and Critical Learning has been generally accused of Pedantry because it has sometimes been pursued by Men who seemed to value themselves upon Abundance of Quotations of Greek and Latin and a vain Ostentation of diffused Reading without any Thing else in their Writings to recommend them yet the Difficulty that there is to do any Thing considerable in it joyned with the great Advantages which thereby have accrued to the Commonwealth of Learning have made this no mean Head whereon to commend the great Sagacity as well as Industry of these later Ages CHAP. XXVIII Of the Theological Learning of the Moderns TO Philology I before added Divinity and as I hope to prove not without Reason As they relate to our Question they both agree in this that the Subject of them both is truly Ancient and that it is impossible to become very excellent in either of them without a familiar Conversation with those Original Books to which the great Masters of both these Sciences do constantly appeal Our Blessed Saviour did not reveal his Law by Halves to his Apostles nor is the New Testament an imperfect Rule of Faith The Old Testament likewise has constantly been at hand and the Jews have ever since their Return from the Babylonish Captivity been scrupulously sollicitous to preserve the Genuine Hebrew and Chaldee Text of the Old Testament pure and uncorrupted to succeeding Ages Yet though these together with the Writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers be Instruments without which no Divine can work and though it seems almost impossible that any Man should be able to perform all the Duties of his Profession that are incumbent upon him as a Scholar without a competent Exactness in all these Things yet it is very possible that Modern Divines who make use of these Instruments may be better Work-men than those Ancient Fathers who furnished them with the greatest part Now that there may be no Disputes about Terms mis-understood it will be necessary to explain what is here meant by a perfect Divine that is to say such an one as may be a Standard whereon to found a Comparison A perfect Divine ought to understand the Text of the Old and New Testament so exactly as to have a clear Notion of every Book in general and of the Grammatical Meaning of every Text in particular that so he may be able to reconcile all Difficulties and answer all Objections that may arise He ought to understand the State of the Church as to its Doctrine and Discipline in its several Ages He ought to be thoroughly versed in all the General Notions of Ethicks taken in their utmost Extent to enable him to resolve such Cases of Conscience as may occurr with Judgment and Satisfaction he ought to be a Master of all the Topicks of Perswasion which can ever lie in his Way that so his Exhortations may please and convince those whom he designs to perswade at the same Time last of all he ought to be able to answer all the Objections which may be or have been raised against the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church by its open or secret Enemies These seem to be the necessary Qualifications of a Perfect Divine it may perhaps be questioned whether any Man did ever fully come up to this Description neither is it necessary that any should since the Question will be as perfectly answered by determining who have come the nearest to it as by assigning any particular Person that ever quite reach'd up to it For these Differences do not lie in a Mathematical Point and
I do not desire that any disputable things should ever be brought under Debate One Qualification indeed and that the greatest of all I have omitted but that relates not to the present Controversie since we are not now enquiring who were the holiest Men but who have been the greatest Masters of their Professions the ancient Fathers or the Modern Divines The first thing required is an exact Knowledge of the Text of the Old Testament Herein even the LXX Interpreters themselves have often failed as has been abundantly proved by Modern Criticks The Copies they used were sometimes faulty and since they did not mend those Faults it is very probable they did not see them It has been observed already That scarce any of the Fathers understood Hebrew besides Origen and St. Hierom who therefore were followed as Oracles by many of their Successors even that alone will not suffice because there are no other Books written in that Language For which Reason Syriac Chaldee Samaritan and Arabic have been studied by Modern Criticks not to mention the Writings of the Rabbins and the Talmudists to which the Ancients were utter Strangers If we come to Particulars who of the Ancients ever unravelled the Chronology of the Old Testament like Archbishop Usher and Sir John Marsham Though Eusebius's Chronicon is a standing Evidence how much he and Julius Africanus before him endeavoured to clear that Matter which was of so great Use to confound the vain Pretences to Antiquity of those other Nations that were so very unwilling to yield to the Jews in this Particular Who has ever given so rational and so intelligible an Account of the Design and Intent of the several parts of the ceremonial Law as Dr. Spencer Who has acquainted the World with the Geography of Genesis or the Natural History of the Bible like Monsieur Bochart These are much harder things than the lengthning of a fine-spun Allegory or than a few moral Reflections which constitute the greatest part of the Ancient Comments But the New Testament you will say was written in a Time that was nearer at Hand and so was certainly better understood Without doubt it was by the First Fathers for which Reason their Interpretations and their Reasonings if we could have recovered many of them would have been of infinite Value But when once the Synagogue and the Church broke off all their Correspondence when once the immediate Reasons of the first Establishment of many Parts of the Christian Discipline and of great Numbers of Allusions to Jewish Customs and Traditions which are to be found in the New Testament could only be known by Study and Reading all which the first Christians knew without Study as we do the Manners and Fashions of our own Age and Country then the ancient Interpretations of the New Testament began to fail and though some of them S. Chrysostom's and Theodoret's especially are in themselves setting Antiquity aside truly valuable yet for want of such a diffused Knowledge of Eastern Antiquities as was necessary and which only could be had by a long Conversation with the Books that are written in those Languages these admirable Commentators seem in several Places not to have found out the true Original of many things in the New Testament which have been discovered since To the next Thing which is Skill in Ecclesiastical Antiquity I have spoken already The Third and the Fourth which relate to a Divine as a Casuist or as a Preacher may be considered of together wherein we of the present Age may without Vanity boast of having the best Books and of them too the greatest Numbers upon these Subjects written in our own Language and by our own Countrymen of any People in the World The Excellency of a Casuist is to give such Resolutions of Doubts and Questions proposed to him as may both suit with the particular Circumstances of the Person who desires Satisfaction and also may be perfectly agreeable to the Law of God A Preacher then seems to perform his Office best when he can at once instruct and move his Auditors can raise their Passions and inform their Judgment That so every Sermon upon a Doctrinal Head may contain the Solution of a Case of Conscience For the first of these It is certain that many of the ablest of the Ancient Fathers were very excellent Casuists as indeed every Man who has a right Judgment an honest Mind and a thorough Acquaintance with the Design of our Blessed Saviour revealed in the Gospel must of necessity be And if at this distance many of their Decisions seem over-severe there is as great at least if not greater Reason to suspect that the Complaints now-a-days raised against them may arise from our Degeneracy as from their unwarrantable Strictness But for the Ancient Way of Preaching there is much more to be said The great Handle by which an Hearer is enabled to carry along with him a Preacher's Arguments is Method and Order Herein the Ancient Homilists are very defective Flights of Rhetorick which are more or less judiciously applied according to the Abilities of the several Preachers make up the greatest part of their Discourses And after Origen most Men busied themselves in giving the People Allegorical Interpretations of Passages of Scriptures which were infinite according to the Fancies of those that used them St. Chrysostom indeed reformed this Custom in the Greek Church His Authority went very far and his Interpretations were almost always Literal and suitably to his vast Genius very judicious But he that considers Preaching as an Art capable of Rules and Improvement will find a mighty Difference between a just methodical Discourse built upon a proper Text of Scripture wherein after the Text is carefully explained some one Duty or Doctrine of Religion thence arising is plainly proved by just and solid Arguments from which such Topicks of Persuasion are drawn at last as are the most likely to raise such an Affection and engage those Passions in the Minds of all the Auditors as will please and move good Men and silence at least if not persuade the Bad and between a loose paraphrastical Explication of a large Portion of Scripture which ends at last in a general Ethical Harangue which is the usual Method of most of St. Chrysostom's Homilies Whereas by the former Method strictly followed very many of our English Sermons especially those of the Great Men of our own Church since the Restauration are Solutions of the most difficult Questions in Divinity and just Discourses upon the several Duties of the Christian Life and this with so much Smoothness so great Beauty of Language and such a just Application of the greatest Ornaments of True and Masculine Eloquence to Things at first View very often the most opposite that the Hearer takes a Pleasure to think that then he is most instructed when he is best pleased The Want of this Method in the Ancient Homilists is the great Reason why they are so little read
It is not because they are hard to be understood for an indifferent Skill in Greek and Latin is sufficient to go through with the greatest part of them But Want of Method great Multiplicity of Words and frequent Repetitions tire out most Readers They know not how far they are got but by the Number of the Leaves and so having no Rest for their Minds to lean upon when once they begin to be weary they are soon disgusted If therefore these Inconveniences are in a great Measure avoided by Modern Preachers their Sermons are in their Kind more perfect though the Matter which both of them work upon be the same And if these Things be the Effects of great Study and of an exact Judgment at least in those who contributed the most to so great an Alteration then this also may come in as a proper Evidence of the Increase of Modern Learning and with much more Reason than those Things which only tend to divert a Man when he is unfit for serious Business Who those are who have succeeded the Hookers the Chillingworths the Sandersons and the Hammonds of this last Age to such excellent purpose for the present and those that shall come after I need not name but shall rather conclude with that Saying in Velleius Paterculus upon a not much unlike Occasion Vivorum ut admiratio magna ita censura difficilis est The last Thing which I mentioned as necessary for a Divine is To be able to answer such Objections as have been or may be raised against the Christian Faith Of the Controversies which have arisen among Christians and the Adversaries with whom they have been obliged to engage there are in the present Account two Sorts those which the Ancient Fathers were concerned with and those that appeared since Of the Latter it may possibly seem hard to pass a Judgment since one cannot well say how Men would have managed Disputes which never came in their Way The former may also be sub-divided into those which have been renewed in our own Time and those of which we have only the Memory in Ancient Books So that one is rather to consider how Controversies were handled in general and so inferr how these Modern ones would have been managed had there been an Occasion which have only engaged the Wits and Passions of later Ages It is evident that in their first Dispures with the Gentiles the old Apologists did with great Accuracy expose both the Follies of their Worship and the Vanity of their Philosophy They opened the Christian Religion with great Clearness they showed the Grounds of their Belief and proved its Reasonableness upon such Principles as were both solid in themselves and suitable to the Ways of Arguing and the peculiar Notions of all their several Adversaries Afterwards when the Mysteries of the Christian Religion were so eagerly debated in Ages wherein they feared no Foreign Force they shewed as great Subtilty in their Arguments and as great Dexterity in shifting off the Sophisms of their Opponents as have ever been shewed in later Times So that thus far the Moderns seem to have little Advantage And indeed the Books that were written in Defence of the Christian Religion were very admirable But in the Controversies that were managed amongst themselves there seem to be many Times as visible Signs of too great a Subtilty as of a judicious Understanding of the Point in hand They used little Method in ranging their Arguments and rarely stated the Question in plain and short Terms which made them often multiply Words to a tedious Length that both tired the Readers and darkned the Dispute That all these Faults are too often found in the Polemical Discourses of the Moderns is most certain But Comparisons are always laid between the ablest Men of both Sides The Modern Defences of the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation may be compared with the old Defences of the same Doctrines against the Arians and other Ancient Hereticks If Hereticks may be compared with Hereticks there is no Question but the Socinians are much abler Disputants than the Arians and Eunomians of old They have collected every Thing that could look like an Argument they have critically canvassed every Text of Scripture which anciently was not so Grammatically understood as now it is and have spared no Pains nor Art to wrest every Thing that with any Shew of Reason could be drawn to their Side They have refined upon the Philosophical Notions of God and of his Attributes and have taken great Care not to confound their Readers or themselves with Want of Method or a Multiplicity of Words Such able Adversaries have not failed of as able Opponents And when Men of Skill manage any Dispute whatsoever it be they will teach one another the Art of Reasoning even though before-hand they should not well have understood it when their Debates continue to any Length Whence also it has followed that though these Great Men who have defended our Faith against such subtile Adversaries would have shewn their Skill equally upon any other Subject which they should have undertook yet upon these Questions the Truth would otherwise have never been so perfectly known And here it ought to be observed that the Art of making Controversies easie and intelligible even though the Arguments should be all the same that had formerly been urged shews much greater Skill and a more thorough Understanding of those Matters than had been discovered before For he that makes another understand a Thing in few Words has a more clear and comprehensive Knowledge of that Thing than another Man who uses a great many Such a Man's Excursions if he has a Mind at any Time to go out of the Way or to enlarge for the Ease of those who love to have Things expressed in an Homilitical Manner will never tire because having his Point still in view he will take Care that his Readers or Auditors shall always know where he is Hence it is that there are many Sermons in our Language upon the most abstruse Questions in the Christian Religion wherein English Readers who never read Fathers nor School-men whose Heads have never been filled with Terms of Art and Distinctions many Times without a Difference may both in few and clear Propositions know what they are to believe and at the same Time know how to defend it Hereby in all our Controversies with Papists Socinians and Dissenters many admirable Discourses have been written wherein one sees the Question rightly stated presently brought to an Head and accurately proved by such Arguments as its particular Nature may require It cannot be denied but a good deal of this Methodical Exactness was at first owing to the School-men but they are Moderns here And if their Writings have some Excellencies which the elegant Composures of more learned Ages want this also affords us a convincing Argument that Mankind will in something or other be always improving and that Men of working Heads what
scanned and more accurately understood and explained than otherwise it would ever have been and I suppose this will be readily owned to be one of the most excellent Parts of Knowledge 2. It is a Question whether very many of the greatest Promoters of any Part of this Theological Knowledge would or could have done so great things upon any other Subject Opposition in general whets Mens Parts extremely and that inward Satisfaction which a good Man takes in thinking that he is employed upon Arguments of greatest Concern to the Souls of Men inspires him with an Ardour that adds Wings to his native Alacrity and makes him in all such Cases even out-do himself 3. When different Parties are once formed and great Numbers of Youths are constantly trained up to succeed the older Champions of their respective Sides as they shall drop off all of them will not apply their Minds to Studies immediately relating to their own Professions but here and there one as his Genius shall lead him will try to excel in different Ways for the Glory of his own Party especially if he sees any of his Adversaries eminently famous before him in those things Thus Petavius set himself to contradict Joseph Scaliger's Books De Emendatione Temporum and Scioppius fell upon his other Critical Writings Whilst Isaac Casaubon concerned himself only with publishing and Commenting upon Athenaeus Polybius and Theophrastus He was complemented by all Sides but when once he wrote against the Annals of Cardinal Baronius he met with numerous Adversaries and there was scarce a Critick of the Church of Rome that wrote for some Time afterwards that did not peck at something or other in his other Writings This Emulation eminently appeared in the Order of the Jesuits the main Design of whose Institution seems to have been to engross all Learning as well as all Politicks to themselves and therefore we see so many extraordinary Men amongst them for all sorts of things thereby to give the World Occasion to think that there must certainly be something more than ordinary in the Constitution of a Body which every Day produced such excellent Persons So that if one considers how far this Emulation went which even yet is not wholly extinct it is hard to say whether Disputes in Religion have not rather helped to encrease the Stock of Learning than otherwise at least one may venture to say that they have not diminished it It is most certain that the different Political Interests in Europe have done it a mighty Kindness During the Establishment of the Roman Empire one common Interest guided that vast Body and these Western Kingdoms amongst the rest Rome was the Center of their Learning of the West as well as of their Hopes and thither the Provinces of this Part of the World had always Resort Whereas now every Kingdom standing upon its own Bottom they are all mutually jealous of each others Glory and in nothing more than in Matters of Learning in those Countries where they have Opportunities to pursue it About an Hundred and Fifty or Two Hundred Years since it was esteemed a very honourable Thing to write a true Ciceronian Style This the Italians pretended to keep to themselves and they would scarce allow that any Man beyond the Alpes unless perhaps Longolius and Cardinal Pole wrote pure Roman Latin This made other Nations strive to equal them and one rarely meets with a Book written at that Time upon a Subject that would bear the Elegancies of Stile in bad Latin When Critical Learning was in Fashion every Nation had some few great Men at the same Time or very near it to set against those of another Italy boasted of Robertus Titius and Petrus Victorius France had Joseph Scaliger Isaac Casaubon Cujacius Pithaeus Brissonius and several more Switzerland produced Gesner for that and almost every thing else Germany had Leopardus Gruter Putschius and others the Low Countries had Justus Lipsius England had Sir Henry Savile every Country had some great Men to keep up its Glory in those things which then were in greatest request In this last Age Mathematical and Physical Sciences seem to have been the Darling Studies of the Learned Men of Europe there also the same Emulation has been equally visible When Great Britain could shew such Men as my Lord Bacon my Lord Napier the Inventor of Logarithms Mr. Harriot Mr. Oughtred and Mr. Horrox Holland had Stevinus who first found out Decimal Arithmetick and Snellius France could reckon up Des Cartes Mersennus Fermat and Gassendi Italy had Galileo Torricellius and Cavallerius Germany Kepler and Denmark not long before Tycho Brahe When afterwards the Philosophers of England grew numerous and united their Strength France also took the Hint and its King set up a Royal Society to Rival ours The Duke of Tuscany had set up already at Florence the Academy del Cimento whose Members employed themselves in pursuing the same Methods In Germany an Academy of the same Nature has been raised Even Ireland has had its Philosophical Society From all which such Swarms of Great Men in every Part of Natural and Mathematical Knowledge have within these few Years appeared that it may perhaps without Vanity be believed that if this Humour lasts much longer and learned Men do not divert their Thoughts to Speculations of another Kind the next Age will not find very much Work of this Kind to do For this sort of Learning has spread where-ever Letters have had any Encouragement in Europe so successfully that even the Northern Kingdoms have had their Bartholin's their Borrichius's their Rudbeck's their Wormius's and their Hevelius's who have put in for that Prize which the Inhabitants of warmer Climates seemed already in possession of This has occasioned the Writing of Abundance of Books to vindicate the Glory of every great Invention to some eminent Man of that Country that the Authors of those Books belonged to Which Disputes though many Times very pedantically managed and with an Heat mis-becoming Learned Men yet has had this good Effect that while some were zealous to secure the Glory of the Invention of Things already discovered to their own Countries others were equally sollicitous to add a more undisputed Honour to them by new Inventions which they were sure no Man could possibly challenge Another Reason of the Decay of Learning according to Sir William Temple is the Want of Protection from Great Men and an unsatiable Thirst after Gain now grown the Humour of the Age. That Princes do not now delight to talk of Matters of Learning in their publick Conversations as they did about an Hundred and Fifty Years ago is very evident When Learning first came up Men fansied that every Thing could be done by it and they were charmed with the Eloquence of its Professors who did not fail to set forth all its Advantages in the most engaging Dress It was so very modish that the fair Sex seemed to believe that Greek and Latin added to
them with the greatest Accuracy The Masters of Writing in all these several Ways to this Day appeal to the Ancients as their Guides and still fetch Rules from them for the Art of Writing Homer and Aristotle and Virgil and Horace and Ovid and Terence are now studied as Teachers not barely out of Curiosity by Modern Poets So likewise are Demosthenes Aristotle Tully Quinctilian and Longinus by those who would write finely in Prose So that there is Reason to think that in these Arts the Ancients may have out-done the Moderns though neither have they been neglected in these later Ages in which we have seen extraordinary Productions which the Ancients themselves had they been alive would not have been ashamed of If this be so as I verily believe it is sure now it will be objected It is evident that the Ancients had a greater Force of Genius than the Moderns can pretend to Will it be urged that here also they had an Advantage by being born first Have these Arts a fixed Foundation in Nature or were they not attained to by Study If by Nature why have we heard of no Orators among the Inhabitants of the Bay of Soldania or eminent Poets in Peru If by Study why not now as well as formerly since Printing has made Learning cheap and easie Does it seem harder to speak and write like Cicero or Virgil than to find out the motions of the Heavens and to calculate the Distances of the Stars What can be the Reason of this Disparity The Reasons are several and scarce one of them of such a Nature as can now be helped and yet not conclusive against the Comparative Strength of Understanding evidently discernible in the Productions of the Learned Men of the present and immediately foregoing Ages to which I would be understood strictly to confine my Notion of the Word Modern These Reasons I shall examine at large because if they are valid they quite take away the Force of Sir William Temple's Hypothesis and by removing the blind Admiration now paid to the Ancient Orators and Poets set it upon such a Foot as will render the Reading of their Books more useful because less superstitious They are of several Sorts some relating to Oratory some to Poesie and some in common to both I shall first speak of those which relate more particularly to Poetry because it was much the ancientest Way of Writing in Greece where their Orators owned that they learned a great deal of what they knew even in their own as well as in other Parts of Learning from their Poets And here one may observe that no Poetry can be Charming that has not a Language to support it The Greek Tongue has a vast variety of long Words wherein long and short Syllables are agreeably intermixed together with great Numbers of Vowels and Diphthongs in the Middle-Syllables and those very seldom clogged by the joyning of harsh-sounding Consonants in the same Syllable All which Things give it a vast Advantage above any other Language that has ever yet been cultivated by Learned Men. By this Means all manner of Tunable Numbers may be formed in it with Ease as still appears in the remaining Dramatick and Lyrick Composures of the Greek Poets This seems to have been at first a lucky Accident since it is as visible in Homer who lived before the Grammarians had determined the Analogy of that Language by Rules which Rules were in a very great measure taken from his Poems as the Standard as in those Poets that came after him And that this peculiar Smoothness of the Greek Language was at first Accidental farther appears because the Phoenician or Hebrew Tongue from whence it was formed as most Learned Men agree is a rough unpolished Tongue abounding with short Words and harsh Consonants So that if one allows for some very small Agreement in the Numbers of Nouns and Variations of Tenses in Verbs the two Languages are wholly of a different Make. That a derived Language should be sweeter than its Mother-Tongue will seem strange to none that compares the Modern Tuscan with the Ancient Latin where though their Affinity is visible at first Sight in every Sentence yet one sees that that derived Language actually has a Sweetness and Tunableness in its Composition that could not be derived from its Parent since nothing can impart that to another which it has not it self And it shows likewise that a Barbarous People as the Italians were when mingled with the Goths and Lombards may without knowing or minding Grammatical Analogy form a Language so very musical that no Art can mend it For in Boccace's Time who lived above 300 Years ago in the earliest Dawnings of Polite Learning in these Western Parts of the World Italian was a formed Language endued with that peculiar Smoothness which other European Languages wanted and it has since suffered no fundamental Alterations not any at least for the better since in the Dictionary of the Academy della Crusca Boccace's Writings are often appealed to in doubtful Cases which concern the Niceties of the Tongue Now when this Native Smoothness of the Greek Tongue was once discovered to common Ears by the sweetness of their Verses which depended upon a Regular Composition of Long and Short Syllables all Men paid great Respect to their Poets who gave them so delightful an Entertainment The wiser Sort took this Opportunity of Civilizing the rest by putting all their Theological and Philosophical Instructions into Verse which being learnt with Pleasure and remembred with Ease helped to heighten and preserve the Veneration already upon other Scores paid to their Poets This increased the Number of Rivals and every one striving to out-do his Neighbour some by varying their Numbers others by chusing Subjects likely to please here and there some one or two atleast of a sort proved excellent And then those who were the most extraordinary in their several Ways were esteemed as Standards by succeeding Ages and Rules were framed by their Works to examine other Poems of the same sort Thus Aristotle framed Rules of Epick Poesie from Homer Thus Aristophanes Menander Saphocles and Euripides were looked upon as Masters in Dramatick Poesie and their Practice was sufficient Authority Thus Mimnermus Philet as and Callimachus were the Patterns to following Imitators for Elegy and Epigram Now Poetry being a limited Art and these Men after the often-repeated Trials of others had proved successless finding the true Secret of pleasing their Country-men partly by their Wit and Sence and partly by the inimitable Sweetness of their Numbers there is no Wonder that their Successors who were to write to a pre-possessed Audience though otherwise Men of equal perhaps greater Parts failed of that Applause of which the great Masters were already in possession for Copying nauseates more in Poetry than any thing So that Buchanan and Sannazarius tho' admirable Poets are not read with that Pleasure which Men find in Lucretius and Virgil by any but their
Way of Reckoning Every Oration of Demosthenes and Isocrates every Play of Aeschylus or Aristophanes every Discourse of Plato or Aristotle was anciently called a Volume This will lessen the Number to us who take whole Collections of every Author's Works in one Lump and call them accordingly in our Catalogues if printed together but by one Title 2. Sir William Temple seems to take it for granted that all these Books were Originals that is to say Books worth preserving which is more than any Man can now prove I suppose he himself believes that there were Ancients of all Sorts and Sizes as well as there are Moderns now And he that raises a Library takes in Books of all Values since bad Books have their Uses to Learned Men as well as good ones So that for any Thing we know to the contrary there might have been in this Alexandrian Library a great Number of Scribblers that like Mushrooms or Flies are born and die in small Circles of Time 3. The World can make a better Judgment of the Value of what is lost at least as it relates to the present Enquiry than one at first View might perhaps imagine The lost Books of the Antiquity of several Nations of their Civil History of the Limits of their several Empires and Commonwealths of their Laws and Manners or of any Thing immediately relating to any of these are not here to be considered because it cannot be pretended that the Moderns could know any of these Things but as they were taught So neither is what may have related to Ethicks Politicks Poesie and Oratory here to be urged since in those Matters the Worth of Ancient Knowledge has already been asserted So that one is only to enquire what and how great the Loss is of all those Books upon Natural or Mathematical Arguments which were preserved in the Alexandrian Asiatick and Roman Libraries or mentioned in the Writings of the Ancient Philosophers and Historians By which Deduction the former Number will be yet again considerably lessened Now a very true Judgment of Ancient Skill in Natural History may be formed out of Pliny whose Extracts of Books still extant are so particular for the present Purpose that there is Reason to believe they were not made carelesly of those that are lost Galen seems to have read whatever he could meet with relating to Medicine in all its Parts And the Opinions of Abundance of Authors whose Names are no where else preserved may be discovered out of his Books of the famous ones especially whom at every Turn he either contradicts or produces to fortifie his own Assertions Ptolemee gives an Account of the old Astronomy in his Almagest Very many Particulars of the Inventions and Methods of Ancient Geometers are to be found in the Mathematical Collections of Pappus The Opinions of the different Sects of Philosophers are well enough preserved in the entire Treatises of the several Philosophers who were of their Sects or in the Discourses of others who occasionally or expresly confute what they say So that I am apt to think that the Philosophical and Mathematical Learning of the Ancients is better conveyed to us than the Civil the Books which treated of those Subjects suiting better the Genius's of several Men and of several Nations too For which Reason the Arabs translated the most considerable Greek Books of this kind as Euclid Apollonius Aristotle Epictetus Cebes and Abundance more that had written of Philosophy or Mathematicks into their own Language whilst they let Books of Antiquity and Civil History lie unregarded Sir William Temple's next Enquiry is From whence both the Ancients and Moderns have received their Knowledge His Method does not seem to be very natural nor his Question very proper since if Discoveries are once made it is not so material to know who taught the several Inventors as what these Inventors first taught others But setting that aside the Summ of what he says in short is this The Moderns gather all their Learning out of Books in Universities which are but dumb Guides that can lead Men but one Way without being able to set them right if they should wander from it These Books besides are very few the Remains of the Writings of here and there an Author that wrote from the Time of Hippocrates to M. Antoninus in the Compass of Six or Seven Hundred Years Whereas Thales and Pythagoras took another sort of a Method Thales acquired his Knowledge in Egypt Phoenicia Delphos and Crete Pythagoras spent Twenty Two Years in Egypt and Twelve Years more in Chaldea and then returned laden with all their Stores and not contented with that went into Ethiopia Arabia India and Crete and visited Delphos and all the renowned Oracles in the World Lest we should wonder why Pythagoras went so far we are told that the Indian Brachmans were so careful to educate those who were intended for Scholars that as soon as the Mother 's found themselves with Child much Thought and Diligence was employed about their Diet and Entertainment to furnish them with pleasant Imaginations to compose their Mind and their Sleeps with the best Temper during the Time that they carried their Burthen It is certain that they must needs have been very learned since they were obliged to spend Thirty Seven Years in getting Instruction Their Knowledge was all Traditional they thought the World was round and made by a Spirit they believed the Transmigration of Souls and they esteemed Sickness such a Mark of Intemperance that when they found themselves indisposed they died out of Shame and Sullenness though some lived an Hundred and Fifty or Two Hundred Years These Indians had their Knowledge in all probability from China a Country where Learning had been in Request from the Time of Fohius their first King It is to be presumed that they communicated of their Store to other Nations though they themselves have few Foot-steps of it remaining besides the Writings of Confucius which are chiefly Moral and Political because one of their Kings who desired that the Memory of every Thing should begin with himself caused Books of all sorts not relating to Physick and Agriculture to be destroyed From India Learning was carried into Ethiopia and Arabia thence by the Way of the Red Sea it came into Phoenicia and the Egyptians learnt it of the Ethiopians This is a short Account of the History of Learning as Sir William Temple has deduced it from its most ancient Beginnings The Exceptions which may be made against it are many and yet more against the Conclusions which he draws from it For though it be certain that the Egyptians had the Grounds and Elements of most parts of real Learning among them earlier than the Greeks yet that is no Argument why the Grecians should not go beyond their Teachers or why the Moderns might not out-do them both Before I examine Sir William Temple's Scheme Step by Step I shall offer as the Geometers
by those Mysteries they kept the People in awe The Philosopher's Stone likewise if they had been Masters of it might for Gain have been concealed And Medicinal Arcana are of Advantage oftentimes to the Possessors chiefly because they are Arcana But Abstracted Mathematical Theories which bring Glory to the Inventors when they are communicated to those that can relish them and which bring no Profit when they are locked up are never concealed from such as shew a Desire to learn them provided that by such a Discovery the first Inventors are not deprived of the Glory of their Inventions which is increased by publishing if they have before-hand taken Care to secure their Right So that we may reasonably conclude that when Pythagoras is commended for no famous Invention in Geometry except the 47th Proposition of the First Book of Euclid that he brought nothing of more Moment in that Way with him out of Egypt and therefore either the further Discoveries that were made in Geometry were made by the Egyptians afterwards or which is more probable they were Grecian Superstructures upon those Foundations Besides though a Man travelled into Egypt yet it does not follow from thence that he learnt all his Knowledge there So that though Archimedes and Euclid were in Egypt yet they might for all that have been Inventors themselves of those noble Theorems which are in their Writings In Archimedes's Time Greeks lived in Alexandria and the Learning of Egypt could no more at that time be attributed to the old Egyptians than the Learning of Archbishop Usher Sir James Ware and Mr. Dodwell can be attributed to a Succession of those learned Irish-men who were so considerable in the Saxon Times This last Consideration is of very great Moment for few of the Greeks after Plato went into Egypt purely for Knowledge and though Plato brought several of his Notions out of Egypt which he interwove into his Philosophy yet the Philosophers of the Alexandrian School who for the most part were Platonists shew by their Way of Writing and by their frequent Citations out of Plato's Books that they chose to take those Things from the Grecians which one would think might have been had nearer home if they had been of the Original Growth of the Country The most considerable Propositions in Euclid's Elements were attributed to the Greeks and we have nothing confessedly Egyptian to oppose to the Writings of Archimedes Apollonius Pergaeus or Diophantus Whereas had there been any Thing considerable it would most certainly have been produced or at least hinted at by some of those very learned Egyptians or rather later Greeks born in Egypt whose Writings that treat of the Extent of the Egyptian Knowledge are still extant Having now examined the History and Geometry of the Egyptians it will be much easier to go through their Pretences or rather the Pretences of their Advocates to Superiority in other Parts of Learning The Egyptians seem to have verified the Proverb That he that has but one Eye is a Prince among those that have none This was Glory enough for it is always very honourable to be the First where the Strife is concerning Things which are worth contending for CHAP. X. Of the Natural Philosophy Medicine and Alchemy of the Ancient Egyptians THE Egyptian Natural Philosophy and Physick shall be joined together because there is so great an Affinity between them that true Notions in either Science assist the other Their Physick indeed was very famous in Homer's Time And wonderful Things are told of Hermes the pretended Father of the Chymical Art But one ought to distinguish between particular Medicines how noble soever and general Theories founded upon a due Examination of the Nature of those Bodies from whence such Medicines are drawn and of the Constitution and Fabrick of the Bodies of the Patients to whom they are to be applied and of the incidental Circumstances of Time and Place which are necessary to be taken in by a wise Physician The Stories of the West-Indian Medicines are many of them very astonishing and those Salvages knew perfectly how to use them and yet they were never esteemed able Physicians This Instance is applicable to the present Question Galen often mentions Egyptian Remedies in his Treatises of Medicines which are numerous and large yet he seldom mentions any of their Hypotheses from which only a Man can judge whether the Egyptians were well-grounded Physicians or Empiricks This is the more remarkable because Galen had lived long at Alexandria and commends the Industry of the Alexandrians in cultivating Anatomy which is so necessary a Part of a Physician 's Business In general therefore we may find that all the Egyptian Notions of Physical Matters were built upon Astrological and Magical Grounds Either the Influence of a particular Planet or of some tutelar Daemon were still considered These Foundations are precarious and impious and they put a Stop to any Increase of real Knowledge which might be made upon other Principles He that minds the Position of the Stars or invokes the Aid of a Daemon will rarely be sollicitous to examine nicely into the Nature of his Remedies or the Constitution of his Patients without which none of the ancient rational Physicians believed that any Man could arrive at a perfect Knowledge of their Art So that if Hippocrates learn'd his Skill in Egypt as it is pretended the Egyptian Physicians afterwards took a very stupid Method to run upon imaginary Scents so far as even to lose the Memory that they had ever pursued more rational Methods Those that would be further satisfied of the Truth of this Matter of Fact may find it abundantly proved in Conringius's Discourse of the old Egyptian Medicine But we are told that there was a particular sort of Physick used only amongst the Egyptian Priests which was kept secret not only from the Greeks that came into their Country for Knowledge but from the Generality of the Natives themselves wherein by the Help of the Grand Elixir they could do almost any thing but restore Life to the Dead This Elixir which was a Medicine made with the Philosophers Stone was a Chymical Preparation And if we may believe Olaus Borrichius the Great and Learned Advocate of the Chymical and Adept Philosophers was the Invention of Hermes who was contemporary with Isis and Osiris whose Age none ever yet determined If these Claims are true there is no Question but the Egyptians understood Nature at least that of Metals in a very high Degree This is an Application of Agents to Patients which if made good will go farther than any Assertion commonly brought to prove the extent of Egyptian Knowledge And therefore I presume I shall not be thought tedious if I enlarge more particularly upon this Question than I have done upon the rest especially since there has not been that I know of any direct Answer ever Printed to Borrichius's Book upon this Argument which he wrote against the
forementioned Discourse of Conringius One may justly wonder that there should have been so noble an Art as that of turning baser Metals into Gold and Silver so long in the World and yet that there should be so very little if any thing said of it in the Writings of the Ancients To remove this Prejudice therefore all the fabulous Stories of the Greeks have by Men of fertile Inventions been given out to be disguised Chymical Arcana Jason's Golden Fleece which he brought from Colchis was only a Receipt to make the Philosopher's Stone and Medea restored her Father-in-Law Aeson to his Youth again by the Grand Elixir Borrichius is very confident that the Egyptian Kings built the Pyramids with the Treasures that their Furnaces afforded them since if there were so many Thousand Talents expended in Leeks and Onions as Herodotus tells us there were which must needs have been an inconsiderable Sum in Comparison of the whole Expence of the Work one cannot imagine how they could have raised Money enough to defray the Charge of the Work any other Way And since Borrichius Jacobus Tollius has set out a Book called Fortuita wherein he makes most of the Old Mythology to be Chymical Secrets But though Borrichius may believe that he can find some obscure Hints of this Great Work in the Heathen Mythologists and in some scattered Verses of the Ancient Poets which according to him they themselves did not fully understand when they wrote them yet this is certain That the ancientest Chymical Writers now extant cannot be proved to have been so old as the Age of Augustus Conringius believes that Zosimus Panopolita is the oldest Chymical Author that we have whom he sets lower than Constantine the Great That perhaps may be a Mistake for Borrichius who had read them both in MS. in the French King's Library brings very plausible Arguments to prove that Olympiodorus who wrote Commentaries upon some of the Chymical Discourses of Zosimus was 150 Years older than Constantine because he mentions the Alexandrian Library in the Temple of Serapis as actually in being which in Ammianus Marcellinus's Time who was contemporary with Julian the Apostate was only talked of as a thing destroyed long before I don't mean that which was burnt in Julius Caesar's Time but one afterwards erected out of the scattered Remains that were saved from that great Conflagration which is mentioned by Tertullian under the Name of Ptolemee's Library at Alexandria If this Zosimus is the same whom Galen mentions for a Remedy for sore Eyes in his 4th Book of Topical Medicines then both he and Olympiodorus might have been considerably older and yet have lived since our Blessed Saviour's Time However be their Age what it will they wrote to themselves and their Art was as little known afterwards as it was before Julius Firmicus is the First Author that has mentioned Alchemy either by Name or by an undisputed Circumlocution and he dedicated his Book of Astrology to Constantine the Great Manilius indeed who is supposed to have lived in Augustus's Time in the 4th Book of his Astronomicon where he gives an Account of those that are born under Capricorn has these Words scrutari caeca metalla Depositas opes terraeque exuere venas Materiemque manu certâ duplicarier arte which last Verse seems to be a Description of Alchemy But besides that the Verse is suspected to be spurious even the Age of Manilius himself is not without Controversie some making him contemporary with the Younger Theodosius and consequently later than Firmicus himself We may expect to have this Question determined when my most Learned Friend Mr. Bentley shall oblige the World with his Censures and Emendations of that Elegant Poet. But if these Grecian Chymists have the utmost Antiquity allowed them that Borrichius desires it will signifie little to deduce their Art from Hermes since Men might pretend that their Art was derived from him in Zosimus's Days and yet come many Thousand Years short of it if we follow the Accounts of Manetho Wherefore though this is but a negative Argument yet it seems to be unanswerable because if there had been such an Art some of the Greeks and Romans who were successively Masters of Egypt would have mentioned it at least before Zosimus's Time Such a Notice whether with Approbation or Contempt had been sufficient to ascertain the Reality of such a Tradition Tacitus tells us that Nero sent into Africa to find some Gold that was pretended to be hid under Ground This would have been an excellent Opportunity for him to have examined into this Tradition or to have punished those who either falsly pretended to an Art which they had not or would not discover the true Secret which in his Opinion would have been equally criminal and had Nero done it Pliny would have told us of it who was very inquisitive to collect all the Stories he could find of every thing that he treats about whereof Gold is one that is not slightly passed over and besides he never omits a Story because it appears strange and incredible if we may judge of what he has left out by what he has put in but often ranges the wonderful Qualities of natural Bodies under distinct Heads that they might be the more observed To evade the Force of this Argument Borrichius says that the Egyptians were afraid of their Conquerours and so industriously concealed their Art But there is a wide Difference between concealing the Rules and Precepts of an Art and concealing the Memory that ever there was such an Art If it was ever known before the Persian Conquest as by his Account of the Erection of the Pyramids which were built many Ages before Cambyses's Time it is plain he believes it was though we should allow it to have been in few Hands it is not credible that this Art of making Gold should never have been pretended to before Dioclesian's Time who is reported by Suidas to have burnt great Numbers of Chymical Book which gave an Account of the Process Whereas afterwards ever now and then Footsteps of cheating Alchemists are to be met with in the Greek Historians It was not possible to pretend to greater Secrecy in the Manner of their Operations than is now to be found in all the Writings of Modern Adept Philosophers as they call themselves And yet these Men who will not reveal their Process would think themselves affronted if any Man should question the real Existence of their Art But the Hypothesis of those who find Chymical Secrets in Homer Virgil and the rest of the ancient Poets is liable to several Exceptions taken Notice of neither by Conringius nor Borrichius 1. They say that when Jason heard that the King of Colchis had a Book writ upon a Ram's-skin wherein was the Process of the Philosopher's Stone he went with the Argonauts to fetch it Here it may be objected 1. That it is not likely that Sesostris who conquered Colchis would
Harvey's Time Not one of these Discoveries has ever shown a single Instance of any Artery going to or of any Vein coming from the Heart Ligatures have been made of infinite Numbers of Vessels and the Course of all the Animal Juices in all manner of living Creatures has thereby been made visible to the naked Eye and yet not one of these has ever weakned Dr. Harvey's Doctrine The Pleasure of Destroying in Matters of this Kind is not much less than the Pleasure of Building And therefore when we see that those Books which have been written against some of the eminentest of these Discoveries though but a few Years ago comparatively speaking are so far dead that it is already become a Piece of Learning even to know their Titles we have sufficient Assurance that these Discoverers whose Writings out-live Opposition neither deceive themselves nor others So that whatsoever it might be formerly yet in this Age general Consent in Physiological Matters especially after a long Canvass of the Things consented to is an almost infallible Sign of Truth 3. The more Ways are made use of to arrive at any one particular Part of Knowledge the surer that Knowledge is when it appears that these different Methods lend Help each to other If Malpighius's or Leeuwenhoek's Glasses had made such Discoveries as Men's Reason could not have agreed to if Objects had appeared confused and disorderly in their Microscopes if their Observations had contradicted what the naked Eye reveals then their Verdict had been little worth But when the Discoveries made by the Knife and the Microscope disagree only as Twi-light and Noon-day then a Man is satisfied that the Knowledge which each affords to us differs only in Degree not in Sort. 4. It can signifie nothing in the present Controversie to pretend that Books are lost or to say that for ought we know Herophilus might anciently have made this Discovery or Erasistratus that their Reasonings demonstrate the Extent of their Knowledge as convincingly as if we had a Thousand old Systems of Ancient Anatomy extant 5. In judging of Modern Discoveries one is nicely to distinguish between Hypothesis and Theory The Anatomy of the Nerves holds good whether the Nerves carry a Nutritious Juice to the several Parts of the Body or no. The Pancreas sends a Juice into the Duodenum which mixes there with the Bile let the Nature of that Juice be what it will Yet here a nice Judge may observe that every Discovery has mended the Hypotheses of the Modern Anatomists and so it will always do till the Theories of every Part and every Juice be as entire as Experiments and Observations can make them As these Discoveries have made the Frame of our own Bodies a much more intelligible Thing than it was before though there is yet a great deal unknown so the same Discoveries having been applied to and found in almost all sorts of known Animals have made the Anatomy of Brutes Birds Fishes and Insects much more perfect than it could possibly be in former Ages Most of the Rules which Galen lays down in his Anatomical Administrations are concerning the Dissection of Apes If he had been now to write besides those tedious Advices how to part the Muscles from the Membranes and to observe their several Insertions and Originations the Jointings of the Bones and the like he would have taught the World how to make Ligatures of all sorts of Vessels in their proper Places what Liquors had been most convenient to make Injections with thereby to discern the Courses of Veins Arteries Chyle-Vessels or Lympheducts how to unravel the Testicles how to use Microscopes to the best Advantage He would have taught his Disciples when and where to look for such and such Vessels or Glands where Chymical Trials were useful and what the Processes were by which he made his Experiments or found out his Theories Which Things fill up every Page in the Writings of later Dissectors This he would have done as well as what he did had these Ways of making Anatomical Discoveries been then known and practised The World might then have expected such Anatomies of Brutes as Dr. Tyson has given of the Rattle-Snake or Dr. Moulin of the Elephant Such Dissections of Fishes as Dr. Tyson's of the Porpesse and Steno's of the Shark Such of Insects as Malpighius's of a Silk-Worm Swammerdam's of the Ephemeron Dr. Lister's of a Snail and the same Dr. Tyson's of Long and Round Body-Worms All which shew Skill and Industry not conceivable by a Man that is not a little versed in these Matters To this Anatomy of Bodies that have Sensitive Life we ought to add the Anatomy of Vegetables begun and brought to great Perfection in Italy and England at the same Time by Malpighius and Dr. Grew By their Glasses they have been able to give an Account of the different Textures of all the Parts of Trees Shrubs and Herbs to trace the several Vessels which carry Air Lympha Milk Rosin and Turpentine in those Plants which afford them to describe the whole Process of Vegetation from Seed to Seed and in a Word though they have left a great deal to be admired because it was to them incomprehensible yet they have discovered a great deal to be admired because of its being known by their Means CHAP. XX. Of Ancient and Modern Natural Histories of Elementary Bodies and Minerals HAving now finished my Comparison of Ancient and Modern Anatomy with as much Exactness as my little Insight into these Things would give me Leave I am sensible that most Men will think that I have been too tedious But besides that I had not any where found it carefully done to my Hands though it is probable that it has in Books which have escaped my Notice I thought that it would be a very effectual Instance how little the Ancients may have been presumed to have perfected any one Part of Natural Knowledge when their own Bodies which they carried about with them and which of any Thing they were the nearliest concerned to know were comparatively speaking so very imperfectly traced However in the remaining Parts of my Parallel I shall be much shorter which I hope may be some Amends for my too great Length in this From those Instruments or Mechanical Arts whether Ancient or Modern by which Knowledge has been advanced I am now to go to the Knowledge it self According to the Method already proposed I am to begin with Natural History in its usual Acceptation as it takes in the Knowledge of the several Kinds of Elementary Bodies Minerals Insects Plants Beasts Birds and Fishes The Usefulness and the Pleasure of this Part of Learning is too well known to need any Proof And besides it is a Study about which the greatest Men of all Ages have employed themselves Of the very few lost Books that are mentioned in the Old Testament one was an History of Plants written by the wisest of Men and he a King So that there is
little further regarded than as they are proper to instruct young Beginners who must have a general Notion of the whole Work before they can sufficiently comprehend any particular Part of it and who must be taught to reason by the Solutions of other Men before they can be able to give Rational Solutions of their own In which Case a false Hypothesis ingeniously contrived may now and then do as much Service as a true one 3. Mathematicks are joyned along with Physiology not only as Helps to Men's Understandings and Quickners of their Parts but as absolutely necessary to the comprehending of the Oeconomy of Nature in all her Works 4. The new Philosophers as they are commonly called avoid making general Conclusions till they have collected a great Number of Experiments or Observations upon the Thing in hand and as new Light comes in the old Hypotheses fall without any Noise or Stir So that the Inferences that are made from any Enquiries into Natural Things though perhaps set down in general Terms yet are as it were by Consent received with this Tacit Reserve As far as the Experiments or Observations already made will warrant How much these Four Things will enlarge Natural Philosophy is easie to guess I do not say that none of these things were anciently done but only that they were not then so general The Corpuscular Philosophy is in all Probability the oldest and its Principles are those intelligible ones I just now commended But its Foundations being very large and requiring much Time Cost and Patience to build any great Matters upon it soon fell before it seems to have been throughly understood For it seems evident That Epicurus minded nothing but the raising of a Sect which might talk as plausibly as those of Aristotle or Plato since he despised all Manner of Learning even Mathematicks themselves and gloried in this that he spun all his Thoughts out of his own Brain a good Argument of his Wit indeed but a very ordinary one of that Skill in Nature which Lucretius extols in him every time that he takes Occasion to speak of him The whole Ancient Philosophy looks like a thing of Ostentation and Pomp otherwise I cannot understand why Plato should reprove Eudoxus and Archytas for trying to make their Skill in Geometry useful in Matters of civil Life by inventing of Instruments of publick Advantage or think that those sublime Truths were debased when the unlearned part of Mankind have been the better for them And therefore as Plutarch complains in his Life of Marcellus Mechanical Arts were despised by Geometers till Archimedes's Time Now though this be particularly spoken there by Plutarch of the making of Instruments of Defence and Offence in War yet it is also applicable to all the Ancient Philosophy and Mathematicks in general The old Philosophers seemed still to be afraid that the common People should despise their Arts if commonly understood this made them keep for the most Part to those Studies which required few Hands and Mechanical Tools to compleat them Which to any Man that has a right Notion of the Extent of a natural Philosopher's Work will appear absolutely necessary Above all the Ancients did not seem sufficiently to understand the Connection between Mathematical Proportions of Lines and Solids in an abstracted Proposition and in every Part of the Creation at least in their reasonings about the Causes of Natural Things they did not take any great pains to shew it When Galen was to give an Account of Vision in his Books De Usu Partium because he had Occasion to use some few Geometrical Terms as Cone Axis Triangle and the like he makes a long Excuse and tells a tedious Story of a Daemon that appeared to him and commanded him to write what he did and all this least the Physicians of that Age should think that he conjured and so take a Prejudice against all that he said This shews that in Galen's Time at least there was little Correspondence between Mathematical and Physical Sciences and that Mankind did not believe that there was so intimate a Relation between them as it is now generally known there is Many a Man that cannot demonstrate any one single Proposition in Euclid takes it now for granted that Geometry is of infinite Use to a Philosopher and it is believed now upon trust because it is become an Axiom amongst the Learned in these Matters And if it had been so received in Galen's Time or by those more ancient Authors whom Galen's Contemporaries followed or pretended at least to follow as their Patterns such as Hippocrates whom all sides reverenced Herophilus Erasistratus Asclepiades and several more there would have been no need of any Excuses for what he was doing since his Readers being accustomed to such sort of Reasonings would either readily have understood them or acquiesced in them as legitimate Ways of Proof If Three or Four Mathematical Terms were so affrighting how would those learned Discourses of Steno and Croone concerning muscular Motion have moved them How much would they have been amazed at such minute Calculations of the Motive-strength of all sorts of Muscles in the several general sorts of Animals as require very great Skill in Geometry even to understand them which are made by Borellus in his Discourses of the Motion of Animals It is not enough in this Case to quote a Saying or Two out of some great Man amongst the Ancients or to tell us that Plato said long ago That God geometrizes in all his Works as long as no Man can produce any one Ancient Essay upon any one Part of Physiology where Mathematical Ratiocinations were introduced to salve those Phaenomena of Natural Things upon which it was possible to talk plausibly without their Help At least it is certain That they contented themselves with general Theories without entring into minute Disquisitions into the several varieties of Things as is evident in the Two Cases already alledged of Vision and Muscular Motion Now as this Method of Philosophizing laid down above is right so it is easie to prove that it has been carefully followed by Modern Philosophers My Lord Bacon was the first great Man who took much pains to convince the World that they had hitherto been in a wrong Path and that Nature her self rather than her Secretaries was to be addressed to by those who were desirous to know very much of her Mind Monsieur Des Cartes who came soon after did not perfectly tread in his Steps since he was for doing most of his Work in his Closet concluding too soon before he had made Experiments enough but then to a vast Genius he joined exquisite Skill in Geometry and working upon intelligible Principles in an intelligible Manner though he very often failed of one Part of his End namely a right Explication of the Phaenomena of Nature yet by marrying Geometry and Physicks together he put the World in Hopes of a Masculine Off-spring in process of Time
though the first Productions should prove abortive This was the State of Natural Philosophy when those great Men who after King Charles II's Restoration joined in a Body called by that Prince himself the ROYAL SOCIETY went on with the Design they made it their Business to set their Members a work to collect a perfect History of Nature in order to establish thereupon a Body of Physicks what has been done towards it by the Members of that illustrious Body will be evident by considering that Boyle Barrow Newton Huygens Malpighius Leeuwenhoek Willoughby Willis and Abundance more already named amongst the great Advancers of real Learning have belonged to it If it shall be thought too tedious a Work to examine all their Writings Mr. Boyle's Works any one good System of the Cartesian Philosophy Monsieur Rohault's for Instance or to comprehend all under one a Book Intituled Philosophia Vetus Nova ad Usum Scholae accommodata may be consulted and then it will be evident enough of which Side the Verdict ought to be given in the last Book especially it is evident how very little the Ancients did in all Parts of Natural Philosophy and what a great Compass it at present takes since it makes the Comparison I all along appeal to Thus it seems to me to be very evident That the Ancients Knowledge in all Matters relating to Mathematicks and Physicks was incomparably inferiour to that of the Moderns These are Subjects many of them at least which require great Intenseness of Thought great Strength and Clearness of Imagination even only to understand them how much more then to invent them The Ancient Orators who spoke so great things in Praise of Eloquence who make it so very hard a thing to be an Orator had little or no Notion of the Difficulty of these Sciences the Romans especially who despised what they did not understand and who did not without some Indignation learn of a People whom themselves had conquered But if they could have conceived what a Force of Genius is required to invent such Propositions as are to be found in the Writings of their own Mathematicians and of the Modern Geometers and Philosophers they would soon have acknowledged that there was need of as great at least if not greater Strength of Parts and Application to do very considerable things in these Sciences as in their own admired Eloquence which was never more artfully employed than in commending it self The Panegyricks which they made upon Geometry were rather Marks of their Pedantry than of their Skill Plato and Pythagoras admired them and therefore they did so too out of a blind Reverence to those great Names Otherwise amongst those numerous Commendations which are given to Archimedes some would have been spent upon the many noble Theorems which he discovered and not almost all upon the Engines wherewith he baffled Marcellus at the Siege of Syracuse The Proposition That the Superficies of a Sphere is equal to the Area's of Four of its greatest Circles which is one of the most wonderful Inventions that was ever found in Geometry shews him to have been a much greater Man than all that is said of him by the Roman or Greek Historians Had experimental Philosophy been anciently brought upon the Stage had Geometry been solemnly and generally applied to the Mechanism of Nature and not solely made use of to instruct Men in the Art of Reasoning and even that too not very generally neither the Moderns would not have had so great Reason to boast as now they have For these are things which come under ocular Demonstration which do not depend upon the Fancies of Men for their Approbation as Oratory and Poetry very often do So that one may not only in general say that the Ancients are out-done by the Moderns in these Matters but also assign most of the particulars and determine the Proportion wherein and how far they have been exceeded and shew the several Steps whereby this sort of Learning has from Age to Age received Improvement which ends Disputes and satisfies the Understanding at once CHAP. XXVII Of the Philological Learning of the Moderns HItherto in the main I please my self that there cannot be much said against what I have asserted though I have all along taken Care not to speak too positively where I found that it was not an easie Thing to vindicate every Proposition without entring into a Controversy which would bear plausible things on both sides and so might be run out into a Multitude of Words which in Matters of this kind are very tiresome But there are other Parts of Learning still behind where the very offering to compare the Moderns to the Ancients may seem a Paradox where the subject Matter is entirely ancient and is chiefly if not altogether contained in Books that were written before the Ancient Learning suffered much Decay Under this Head Philology and Divinity may very properly be ranked I place Divinity last to avoid Repetition because what I have to say concerning Modern Philology will strengthen many things that may be urged in the Behalf of Modern Divinity as opposed to the Ancient In speaking of the Extent and Excellency of the Philological Learning of the Moderns within these last 200 Years I would not be mis-understood For the Question is not whether any Modern Critick has understood Plato or Aristotle Homer or Pindar as well as they did themselves for that were ridiculous but whether Modern Industry may not have been able to discover a great many Mistakes in the Assertions of the Ancients about Matters not done in their own Times but several Ages before they were born For the Ancients did not live all in one Age and though they appear all under one Denomination and so as it were upon a Level like things seen at a vast Distance to us who are very remote from the youngest of them yet upon a nearer View they will be found very remote each from the other and so as liable to Mistakes when they talk of Matters not transacted in their own Times as we are when reason of Matters of Fact which were acted in the Reign of William the Conquerour Wherefore if one reflects upon the Alteration which Printing has introduced into the State of Learning when every Book once printed becomes out of Danger of being lost or hurt by Copiers and that Books may be compared examined and canvassed with much more Ease than they could before it will not seem ridiculous to say That Joseph Scaliger Isaac Casaubon Salmasius Henricus Valesius Selden Usher Bochart and other Philologers of their Stamp may have had a very comprehensive View of Antiquity such a one as Strangers to those Matters can have no Idea of nay a much greater than taken altogether any one of the Ancients themselves ever had or indeed could have Demosthenes and Aristophanes knew the State of their own Times better than Casaubon or Salmasius But it is a Question whether Boëthius or