Subject soever they handle though they live in Times when they have none but barbarous Patterns to copy after will do many things which politer People did not know or else over-look'd Upon this Occasion I cannot but take Notice that the Moderns have made clearer and shorter Institutions of all Manner of Arts and Sciences than any which the Ancients have left us I have already instanced in the Method whereto all the Parts of Natural History have been reduced It is evident That Method in all those things must be the Effect of a Comprehensive Knowledge of the Bodies so ranged and of a nice Comparison of every several Body and Animal one with another since otherwise their mutual Differences and Agreements cannot possibly be adjusted the same has been done in Anatomy in Chymistry in all parts of Physicks and Mathematicks How confused many Times and always lax are Galen's Anatomical Discourses in Comparison of Bartholin's Diemerbroeck's and Gibson's Monsiéur Perrault has observed already that Aristotle expressed himself so obscurely in his Physical Discourses that his Meaning is almost as variously represented as there have been Commentators who have written upon him whereas no Man ever doubted of the precise meaning of the Writings of Des Cartes and Rohault though all Men are not of their Opinion In Mathematicks the thing is yet more visible how long and tedious are Euclid's Demonstrations either in Greek or as they are commented upon by Clavius in Comparison of Tacquet's or Barrow's Tacquet has made Astronomy intelligible with a very little Help which before was not to be attained without a Master and a World of Patience the same has Varenius done in the Mathematical Part of Geography Tacquet in Practical Geometry Opticks and Catoptricks The Doctrine of the Conic Sections in Apollonius Pergaeus is so intricate the Demonstrations are so long and so perplexed that they have always deterred all but First-Rate Geometers This Pensioner De Witte has made so easie in his Elements of Curve Lines that it is readily mastered by any Man who has read the First Six Books of Euclid Such Abridgments save Abundance of Labour and make Knowledge pleasant to those who in the last Age were so exceedingly frightned with the Thoughts of the Difficulty of these Studies that Sir Henry Savile made as formal a Business of his Prelections upon the Definitions Axioms and VIII First Propositions of the First Book of Euclid which may be thoroughly comprehended by a Man of ordinary Parts in Two Hours Time by the Help of Tacquet's Elements as a Man would now of Lectures upon the hardest Propositions in Mr. Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy To these judicious Abridgements the wonderful Increase of this Part of Knowledge for these last LXX Years is in a great Measure to be attributed and though Methodizers and Compilers of Systems have very often the hard Fate to be undervalued by those who have been Inventors themselves yet in Mathematical Sciences the Case is something different for things cannot be abbreviated here without an almost intuitive Knowledge of the Subjects then to be abridged and brought into one View In Moral or Historical Discourses an Epitomizer immediately sees what is either in its self superfluous or not to his particular Purpose and so when he has cut it off what remains is in some sort intire and may be understood without the rest so that there is no Harm done But here that will by no means suffice for the most verbose Mathematicians rarely ever said any thing for saying Sake their 's being Subjects in which Figures of Rhetorick could have no sort of Place but they made every Conclusion depend upon such a Chain of Premises already proved that if one Link were broke the whole Chain fell in Pieces and therefore he that would reduce those Demonstrations into a narrower Compass must take the whole Proposition a new in Pieces must turn it several Ways must consider all the Relations which that Line or that Solid has to other Lines or Solids must carefully have considered how many several Ways it can be generated before he can be able to demonstrate it by a shorter Method and by other Arguments than those by which it was proved before in short he must in a Manner be able to invent the Proposition of himself before he can put it into this new Dress for which Reason Tacquet Barrow and De Witte have been reckoned amongst the Principal Geometers of the Age as well as for their other Inventions in Geometry Tschirnhaus's Medicina Mentis will give a clear Idea of many things relating to this Matter And now having gone through the several Parts of the Parallel which I proposed at first to make I shall close all with Sir William Temple's Words a little altered Though Thales Pythagoras Democritus Hippocrates Plato Aristotle and Epicurus may be reckoned amongst the First mighty Conquerours of Ignorance in our World and though they made great Progresses in the several Empires of Science yet not so great in very many Parts as their Successors have since been able to reach These have pretended to much more than barely to learn what the others taught or to remember what they invented and being able to compass that it self have set up for Authors upon their own Stocks and not contenting themselves only with commenting upon those Texts have both copied after former Originals already set them and have added Originals of their own in many things of a much greater Value CHAP. XXIX Reflections upon the Reasons of the Decay of Modern Learning assigned by Sir William Temple HAving therefore as I hope sufficiently proved that there has not been such a Fall in Modern Learning as Sir William Temple supposes nay even that comparatively speaking the Extent of Knowlege is at this Time vastly greater than it was in former Ages it may seem perhaps a needless Thing to examine those Reasons which he alledges of the Decrease of that which in the gross has suffered no Decay Something however I shall say to them because if they do not prove what Sir William Temple designs yet they will prove at least what a perfect thing Learning might have been if it had not met with such Impediments The first Blow which he says that Learning received was by the Disputes which arose about Religion in Europe soon after the Revival of Learning in these parts of the World There is no doubt but the Thoughts of many very able Men were taken up with those Controversies who if they had turned them with the same Application to natural or civil Knowledge would therein have done very extraordinary things Yet considering all things it may be justly questioned whether Learning may not by these very Disputes have received either immediately or occasionally a very great Improvement or at least suffered no very considerable Diminution For 1. it is certain That whatsoever relates to Divinity as a Science has hereby been better
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
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
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