Time who was overthrown by Abraham and his Family in the Vale of Siddim the Kings of Chaldea seem to have been no other than those of Canaan Captains of Hords or Heads of Clans And Amraphel was Tributary to Chedorlaomer King of Elam whose Kingdom lay to the East of Babylon beyond the River Tigris Chushan Rishathaim King of Mesopotamia who was overthrown some Ages after by Othoniel the Israelitish Judge does not seem to have been a mighty Prince It may be said indeed that he was General to some Assyrian Monarch but that is begging the Question since there is nothing which can favour such an Assertion in the Book of Judges But when the Assyrians and Babylonians come once to be mentioned in the Jewish History they occurr in almost every Page of the Old Testament There are frequent Accounts of Pul Tiglath-Pileser Shalmanezer Sennacherib Esar-haddon Nebuchadnezzar Evil-merodach Belshazzar and who not But these Kings lived within a narrow Compass of Time the oldest of them but a few Ages before Cyrus This would not suit with that prodigious Antiquity which they challenged to themselves The Truth is Herodotus who knew nothing of it being silent Ctesias draws up a new Scheme of History much more pompous and from him or rather perhaps from Berosus who was Contemporary with Manetho and seems to have carried on the same Design for Chaldea which Manetho undertook for Egypt Diodorus Siculus Pompeius Trogus Eusebius Syncellus and all the Ancients that take notice of the Assyrian History have afterwards copied Ctesias knew he should be straitned to find Employment for so many Kings for Thirteen Hundred Years and so he says they did little memorable after Semiramis's Time Sir William Temple employs them in Gardening As if it were probable that a great Empire could lie still for above a Thousand Years or that no Popular Generals should wrest the Reins out of the Hands of such drowzy Masters in all that Time No History but this can give an Instance of a Family that lasted for above a Thousand Years without any Interruption And of all its Kings not one is said to reign less than Nineteen but some Fifty five Years The healthiest Race that ever was heard of of whom in Thirteen Hundred Years not one died an untimely Death If any Thing can be showed like this in any other History Sacred or Profane it will be easie to believe whatsoever is asserted upon this Subject If therefore the Chaldean Learning was no older than their Monarchy it was of no great Standing if compared with the Egyptian The Account of Nebuchadnezzar's Dream in the 2d Chapter of Daniel shews the Chaldean Magick to have been downright Knavery since Nebuchadnezzar might reasonably expect that those should tell him what his Dream was who pretended to interpret it when it was told them both equally requiring a super-natural Assistance Yet there lay their chiefest Strength or at least they said so Their other Learning is all lost However one can hardly believe that it was ever very great that considers how little there remains of real Value that was learnt from the Chaldeans The History of Learning is not so lamely conveyed to us but so much would in all probability have escaped the general Ship wrack as that by what was saved we might have been able to guess at what was lost If the Learning of these Ancient Chaldeans came as near that of the Arabs as their Countries did one may give a very good Judgment of its Extent Sir William Temple observes that Countries little exposed to Invasions preserve Knowledge better than others that are perpetually harrassed by a Foreign Enemy and by Consequence whatsoever Learning the Arabs had they kept unless we should suppose that they lost it through Carelesness We never read of any Conquests that pierced into the Heart of Arabia the Happy Mahomet's Country before the Beginning of the Saracen Empire It is very strange therefore if in its Passage through this noble Country inhabited by a sprightly ingenious People Learning like Quick-Silver should run through and leave so few of its Influences behind it It is certain that the Arabs were not a learned People when they over-spread Asia So that when afterwards they translated the Grecian Learning into their own Language they had very little of their own which was not taken from those Fountains Their Astronomy and Astrology was taken from Ptolemee their Philosophy from Aristotle their Medicks from Galen and so on Aristotle and Euclid were first translated into Latin from Arabick Copies and those Barbarous Translations were the only Elements upon which the Western School-men and Mathematicians built If they learnt any thing considerable elsewhere it might be Chymistry and Alchemy from the Egyptians unless we should say that they translated Synesius or Zosimus or some other Grecian Chymists Hence it follows that the Arabs borrowed the greatest part at least of their Knowledge from the Greeks though they had much greater Advantages of Communicating with the more Eastern Parts of the World than either Greeks or Romans ever had They could have acquainted us with all that was rare and valuable amongst those Ancient Sages The Saracen Empire was under one Head in Almanzor's Time and was almost as far extended Eastward as ever afterwards His Subjects had a free Passage from the Tagus to the Ganges and being united by the common Bond of the same Religion the Brachmans some of whom did in all probability embrace the Mahomet an Faith would not be shy of revealing what they knew to their Arabian Masters By this Means the Learning of the Egyptians Chaldeans Indians Greeks and Arabs ran in one common Channel For several Ages Learning was so much in Fashion amongst them and they took such Care to bring it all into their own Language that some of the learnedest Jews Maimonides in particular wrote in Arabick as much as in their own Tongue So that we might reasonably have expected to have found greater Treasures in the Writings of these learned Mahometans than ever were discovered before And yet those that have been conversant with their Books say that there is little to be found amongst them which any Body might not have understood as well as they if he had carefully studied the Writings of their Grecian Masters There have been so many Thousands of Arabick and Persick MSS. brought over into Europe that our learned Men can make as good nay perhaps a better Judgment of the Extent of their Learning than can be made at this distance of the Greek There are vast Quantities of their Astronomical Observations in the Bodleian Library and yet Mr. Greaves and Dr. Edward Bernard two very able Judges have given the World no Account of any Thing out of them which those Arabian Astronomers did not or might not have learnt from Ptolemee's Almagest if we set aside their Observations which their Grecian Masters taught them to make which to give them their due Dr. Bernard commends as much
Chymical Medicine i They first extracted Vinous Spirits from Fermented Liquors Not to mention Abundance of other Preparations which Arnoldus de Villa Nova Raymund Lully his Scholar and F. Bacon learned from them I will not deny but some Chymical Experiments were very anciently known Solomon hints at the Disagreement of Vinegar and Nitre which though not intelligible of common Nitre yet as Mr. Boyle found by his own Experience it is certainly true of Egyptian Nitre which as being a natural Alkali will cause an Ebullition when joined with any Acid Salt The Property of Mercury to mix or as the Chymists speak to Amalgamate with Gold was known in Vitruvius's Time Though by that one may perceive that very few of its other Properties were then known since Pliny who mentions that Quality of Mercury that it will Amalgamate with Gold speaks of it as a singular Thing in these Words Every Thing swims upon Quick-Silver but Gold that only it draws to it self Whereas now every Body knows that Mercury will Amalgamate with all Metals but Copper and Iron And if the Ancients Skill in Minerals may be judged of by Pliny's Accounts they believed that Lead was heavier and more ductile than Gold Some Passages likewise are produced by Borrichius to prove that the Ancients understood something of Calcinations and the Use of Lixiviate Salts But these Things are very few very imperfect and occasional Chymistry was not esteemed as a distinct Art or the Analyses thereby produced worthy a Philosopher's Notice though the Industry of later Ages have found them to be so regular and remarkable that many Persons have thought that the Constituent Principles of Mixed Bodies are no other Way so certainly to be found out Hence have the Hypotheses of the Paracelsians taken their Beginning who held that Salt Sulphur and Mercury were the active Principles of Composition of all Mixed Bodies Hence several others have been led to believe that the Primary Constituents of very many Bodies were Acid and Alkalizate Salts Which Hypotheses though liable to many Exceptions as Mr. Boyle has fully proved are founded upon such a Variety of surprizing Experiments that those who first started them were not so unadvised as one that is wholly unacquainted with the Laboratories of the Chymists might at first View suspect For it is certain that five distinct and tolerably uniform Substances may be drawn from most Vegetable and Animal Substances by Fire namely Phlegm Fixed Salt Oil Earth and Spirit or Volatile Salt dissolved in Phlegm So that here is a new Field of Knowledge of which the Ancients had no sort of Notion The great and successful Change hereby made in the Pharmaceutical Part of Physick shews that these Philosophers by Fire have spent their Time to very good purpose Those Physicians who reason upon Galenical Principles acknowledge that in very many Cases the Tinctures Extracts Spirits Volatile Salts and Rosins of Vegetables and Animals are much more efficacious Remedies than the Galenical Preparations of those self-same Medicines Nay though they are not easily reconciled to Mineral Preparations because the Ancients not knowing how to separate them from their grosser Faeces durst very seldom apply them to any but Chirurgical Uses yet they themselves are forced to own that some Diseases are of so malignant a Nature that they cannot be dispelled by milder Methods The Use of Mercury in Venereal Distempers is so great and so certain that if there be such a Thing as a Specifical Remedy in Nature it may justly deserve that Title The Unskilfulness of those who have prepared and administred Antimonial Medicines has made them infamous with many Persons though many admirable Cures have been and are wrought by them skilfully corrected every Day And it is well known that the inward Use of Steel has been so successful that in many Diseases where the nicest Remedies seem requisite whether the Constitution of the Patients or the Nature of the Distempers be considered it is without Fear made use of tho' its Medicinal Virtues in these Cases have been found out by Chymical Methods Upon the whole Matter it is certain that here is a new and gainful Acquisition made The old Galenical Materia Medica is almost as well known in all probability as ever it was since there are so great Numbers of Receipts preserved in the Writings of the old Physicians The Industry of Modern Naturalists has in most at least in all material Cases clearly discovered what those Individual Remedies are which are there described So that whatsoever Enlargement is made is a clear Addition especially since these Minerals and Metals were then as free and common as they are now Besides vast Numbers of Galenical Medicines Chymically prepared are less nauseous and equally powerful which is so great an Advantage to Physick that it ought not to be over-looked CHAP. XVII Of Ancient and Modern Anatomy ANatomy is one of the most necessary Arts to open to us Natural Knowledge of any that was ever thought of It s Usefulness to Physicians was very early seen and the Greeks took great Pains to bring it to Perfection Some of the first Dissectors tried their Skill upon living Bodies of Men as well as Brutes This was so inhumane and barbarous a Custom that it was soon left off And it created such an Abhorrence in Mens Minds of the Art it self that in Galen's Time even dead Bodies were seldom opened and he was often obliged to use Apes instead of Men which sometimes led him into great Mistakes It may be said perhaps that because there is not an ancient System of Anatomy extant therefore the Extent of their Knowledge in this particular cannot be known But the numerous Anatomical Treatises of Galen do abundantly supply that Defect In his elaborate Work of the Uses of the Parts of Humane Bodies he gives so full an Idea of ancient Anatomy that if no other ancient Book of Anatomy were extant it alone would be sufficient for this purpose He is very large in all his Writings of this Kind in taking Notice of the Opinions of the Anatomists that were ancienter than himself especially when they were mistaken and had spent much Time and Pains in opening Bodies of Brutes of which he somewhere promises to write a comparative Anatomy So that his Books not only acquaint us with his own Opinions but also with the Reasonings and Discoveries of Hippocrates Aristotle Herophilus and Erasistratus whose Names were justly venerable for their Skill in these things Besides he never contradicts any Body without appealing to Experience wherein though he was now and then mistaken yet he does not write like a Pedant affirming a thing to be true or false upon the Credit of Hippocrates or Herophilus but builds his Argument upon Nature as far as he knew her He had an excellent Understanding and a very piercing Genius so that the false uses which he very frequently assigns to several Parts do
chief Aim and therefore all Niceties of Time and Place and Person that might hurt the Flowingness of their Stile were omitted instead whereof the Great Men of their Drama's were introduced making long Speeches and such a Gloss was put upon every Thing that was told as made it appear extraordinary and Things that were wonderful and prodigious were mentioned with a particular Emphasis This Censure will not appear unjust to any Man who has read Ancient Historians with ordinary Care Polybius especially Who first of all the Ancient Historians fixes the Time of every great Action that he mentions Who assigns such Reasons for all Events as seem even at this distance neither too great nor too little Who in Military Matters takes Care not only to shew his own Skill but to make his Reader a Judge as well as himself Who in Civil Affairs makes his Judgment of the Conduct of every People from the several Constitutions of their respective Governments or from the Characters and Circumstances of the Actors themselves And last of all Who scrupulously avoids saying any Thing that might appear incredible to Posterity but represents Things in such a manner as a wise Man may believe they were transacted And yet he has neglected all that Artful Eloquence which was before so much in fashion If these therefore be the chiefest Perfections of a just History and if they can only be the Effects of a great Genius and great Study or both at least not of the last without the first we are next to enquire whether any of the Moderns have been able to attain to them And then if several may be found which in none of these Excellencies seem to yield to the noblest of all the Ancient Histories it will not be difficult to give an Answer to Sir William Temple's Question Whether D'Avila 's and Strada 's Histories be beyond those of Herodotus and Livy I shall name but two The Memoirs of Philip Comines and F. Paul 's History of the Council of Trent Philip Comines ought here to be mentioned for many Reasons For besides that he particularly excels in those very Vertues which are so remarkable in Polybius to whom Lipsius makes no Scruple to compare him he had nothing to help him but Strength of Genius assisted by Observation and Experience He owns himself that he had no Learning and it is evident to any Man that reads his Writings He flourished in a barbarous Age and died just as Learning had crossed the Alpes to get into France So that he could not by Conversation with Scholars have those Defects which Learning cures supplied This is what cannot be said of the Thucydides's Polybius's Sallusts Livies and Tacitus's of Antiquity Yet with all these Disadvantages to which this great one ought also to be added That by the Monkish Books then in vogue he might sooner be led out of the Way than if he had none at all to peruse his Stile is Masculine and significant though diffuse yet not tedious even his Repetitions which are not over-frequent are diverting His Digressions are wise proper and instructing One sees a profound Knowledge of Mankind in every Observation that he makes and that without Ill Nature Pride or Passion Not to mention that peculiar Air of Impartiality which runs through the whole Work so that it is not easie to withdraw our Assent from every Thing which he says To all which I need not add that his History never tires though immediately read after Livy or Tacitus In F. Paul's History one may also find the Excellencies before observed in Polybius and it has been nicely examined by dextrous and skilful Adversaries who have taken the Pains to weigh every Period and rectifie every Date So that besides the Satisfaction which any other admirable History would have afforded us we have the Pleasure of thinking that we may safely rely upon his Accounts of Things without being mis-guided in any one leading Particular of great moment since Adversaries who had no Inclination to spare him could not invalidate the Authority of a Book which they had so great a Desire to lessen I had gone no further than D'Avila and Strada if there were as much Reason to believe their Narratives as there is to commend their Skill in writing D'Avila must be acknowledged to be a most Entertaining Historian one that wants neither Art Genius nor Eloquence to render his History acceptable Strada imitates the old Romans so happily that those who can relish their Eloquence will be always pleased with his Upon the whole Matter one may positively say That where any Thing wherein Oratory can only claim a Share has been equally cultivated by the Moderns as by the Ancients they have equalled them at least if not out-done them setting aside any particular Graces which might as well be owing to the Languages in which they wrote as to the Writers themselves CHAP. IV. Reflections upon Monsieur Perrault 's Hypothesis That Modern Orators and Poets are more excellent than Ancient WHatever becomes of the Reasons given in the last Chapter for the Excellency of Ancient Eloquence and Poetry the Position it self is so generally held that I do not fear any Opposition here at home It is almost an Heresie in Wit among our Poets to set up any Modern Name against Homer or Virgil Horace or Terence So that though here and there one should in Discourse preferr the present Age yet scarce any Man who sets a Value upon his own Reputation will venture to assert it in Print Whether this is to be attributed to their Judgment or Modesty or both I will not determine though I am apt to believe to both because in our Neighbour-Nation which is remarkable for a good deal of what Sir William Temple calls Sufficiency some have spoken much more openly For the Members of the Academy in France who since the Cardinal de Richelieu's Time have taken so much Pains to make their Language capable of all those Beauties which they find in Ancient Authors will not allow me to go so far as I have done Monsieur Perrault their Advocate in Oratory sets the Bishop of Meaux against Pericles or rather Thucydides the Bishop of Nismes against Isocrates F. Bourdaloüe against Lysias Monsieur Voiture against Pliny and Monsieur Balzac against Cicero In Poetry likewise he sets Monsieur Boileau against Horace Monsieur Corneille and Monsieur Moliere against the Ancient Dramatick Poets In short though he owns that some amongst the Ancients had very exalted Genius's so that it may perhaps be very hard to find any Thing that comes near the Force of some of the Ancient Pieces in either Kind amongst our Modern Writers yet he affirms that Poetry and Oratory are now at a greater heighth than ever they were because there have been many Rules found out since Virgil's and Horace's Time and the old Rules likewise have been more carefully scanned than ever they were before This Hypothesis ought a little to be enquired into and
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
of Measuring the Area's of many Infinities of Curvilinear Spaces whereas Archimedes laboured with great Difficulty and wrote a particular Treatise of the Quadrature of only one which is the simplest and easiest in Nature 4. The Method of Determining the Tangents of all Geometrick Curve Lines whereas the Ancients went no further than in determining the Tangents of the Circle and Conick Sections 5. The Method of Determining the Lengths of an infinite Number of Curves whereas the Ancients could never measure the Length of one If I should descend to Particulars the Time would fail me As our Algebra so also our Common Arithmetick is prodigiously more perfect than theirs of which Decimal Arithmetick and Logarithms are so evident a Proof that I need say no more about it I would not be thought however to have any Design to sully the Reputation of those Great Men Conon Archimedes Euclid Apollonius c. who if they had lived to enjoy our Assistance as we now do some of theirs would questionless have been the greatest Ornaments of this Age as they were deservedly the greatest Glory of their own Thus far Mr. Craig Those that have the Curiosity to see some of these Things proved at large which Mr. Craig has contracted into one View may be amply satisfied in Dr. Wallis's History of Algebra joyned with Gerhard Vossius's Discourses De Scientiis Mathematicis It must not here be forgotten that Abstracted Mathematical Sciences were exceedingly valued by the ancientest Philosophers None that I know of expressing a Contempt of them but Epicurus tho' all did not study them alike Plato is said to have written over the Door of his Academy Let no Man enter here who does not understand Geometry None of all the learned Ancients has been more extolled by other learned Ancients than Archimedes So that if in these Things the Moderns have made so great a Progress this affords a convincing Argument that it was not Want of Genius which obliged them to stop at or to come behind the Ancients in any Thing else CHAP. XV. Of several Instruments invented by the Moderns which have helped to advance Learning HAving now enquired into the State of Mathematicks as they relate to Lines and Numbers in general I am next to go to those Sciences which consider them as they are applied to Material Things But these being of several Sorts and of a vast Extent taking in no less than the whole Material World it ought to be observed that they cannot be brought to any great Perfection without Numbers of Tools or Arts which may be of the same Use as Tools to make the Way plain to several Things which otherwise without their Help would be inaccessible Of these Tools or Instruments some were anciently invented and those Inventions were diligently pursued Others are wholly new According to their Uses they may be ranged under these two General Heads 1. Those which are useful to all Parts of Learning though perhaps not to all alike 2. Those which are particularly subservient to a Natural Philosopher and a Mathematician Under the first Head one may place Printing and Engraving Under the Latter come Telescopes Microscopes the Thermometer the Baroscope the Air-Pump Pendulum-Clocks Chymistry and Anatomy All these but the two last were absolutely unknown to former Ages Chymistry was known to the Greeks and from them carried to the Arabs Anatomy is at least as old as Democritus and Hippocrates and among the exact Epyptians something older The Use of Printing has been so vast that every thing else wherein the Moderns have pretended to excel the Ancients is almost entirely owing to it And withal its general Uses are so obvious that it would be Time lost to enlarge upon them but it must be taken Notice of because Sir William Temple has questioned whether Printing has multiplied Books or only the Copies of them from whence he concludes that we are not to suppose that the Ancients had not equal Advantages by the Writings of those that were ancient to them as we have by the Writings of those that are ancient to us But he may easily solve his own Doubt if he does but reflect upon the Benefit to Learning which arises from the multiplying Copies of good Books For though it should be allowed that there were anciently as many Books as there are now which is scarce credible yet still the Moderns have hereby a vast Advantage because 1. Books are hereby much cheaper and so come into more Hands 2. They are much more easily read and so there is no Time lost in poring upon bad Hands which wastes Time wearies the Reader and spoils Mens Eyes 3. They can be printed with Indexes and other necessary Divisions which though they may be made in MSS. yet they will make them so voluminous and cumbersome that not one in Forty who now mind Books because they love Reading would then apply themselves to it 4. The Notice of new and excellent Books is more easily dispersed 5. The Text is hereby better preserved entire and is not so liable to be corrupted by the Ignorance or Malice of Transcribers this is of great Moment in Mathematicks where the Alteration of a Letter or a Cypher may make a Demonstration unintelligible But to say more upon this Subject would be to abuse Mens Patience since these things if not self-evident yet need no Proof Engraving upon Wood or Copper is of great Use in all those Parts of Knowledge where the Imagination must be assisted by sensible Images For want of this noble Art the Ancient Books of Natural History and Mechanical Arts are almost every where obscure in many Places unintelligible Mathematical Diagrams which need only a Ruler and a pair of Compasses have been better preserved and could with more Ease be drawn But in Anatomy in Mechanicks in Geography in all Parts of Natural History Engraving is so necessary and has been so very advantageous that without it many of those Arts and Sciences would to this Hour have received very little Increase For when the Images the Proportions and the Distances of those things wherein a Writer intends to instruct his Reader are fully and minutely engraven in Prints it not only saves Abundance of Words by which all Descriptions must of Necessity be obscured but it makes those Words which are used full and clear so that a skillful Reader is thereby enabled to pass an exact Judgment and can understand his Authors without a Master which otherwise it would be impossible to do so as to be able to discern all even the minutest Mistakes and Oversights in their Writings which puts an end to Disputes and encreases Knowledge These are general Instruments and more or less serviceable to all sorts of learned Men in their several Professions and Sciences Those that follow are more particular I shall begin with those that assist the Eye either to discern Objects that are too far off or too small The Imperfections of Distance are remedied
and a Nipple towards which several of those small Pipes tend and through which the Urine ouzes out of them into the Basin This clear Use of the Structure of the Reins has effectually confuted several Notions that Men had entertained of some Secundary Uses of those Parts since hereby it appears that every Part of the Kidneys is immediately and wholly subservient to that single Use of Freeing the Blood from its superfluous Serum What has been done by Modern Anatomists towards the Compleating of the Knowledge of the remaining Parts I shall omit That the Ancients likewise took Pains about them is evident from the Writings of Hippocrates Aristotle and Galen The Discoveries which have since been made are so great that they are in a manner undisputed And the Books which treat of them are so well known that it will not be suspected that I decline to enlarge upon them out of a Dread of giving up more to the Ancients in this Particular than I have done all along The Discoveries hitherto mentioned have been of those Parts of Humours of the Body whose Existence was well enough known to the Ancients But besides them other Humours with Vessels to separate contain and carry them to several Parts of the Body have been taken notice of of which in strictness the Ancients cannot be said to have any sort of Knowledge These are the Lympha or Colourless Juice which is carried to the Chyle and Blood from separate Parts of the Body And the Mucilage of the Joints which lubricates them and the Muscles in their Motions The Discovery of the Lympha which was made about Forty Years ago is contended for by several Persons Thomas Bartholine a Dane and Olaus Rudbeck a Suede published their Observations about the same Time And Dr. Jolliffe an English-Man shewed the same to several of his Friends but without publishing any Thing concerning them The Discoveries being undoubted and all Three working upon the same Materials there seems no Reason to deny any of them the Glory of their Inventions The Thing which they found was that there are innumerable small clear Vessels in many Parts of the Body chiefly in the Lower Belly which convey a Colourless Juice either into the common Receptacle of the Chyle or else into the Veins there to mix with the Blood The Valves which Frederic Ruysch found and demonstrated in them about the same Time manifestly shewed that this is its Road because they prove that the Lympha can go forwards from the Liver Spleen Lungs Glands of the Loins and Neck or any other Place whence they arise towards some Chyliferous Duct or Vein but cannot go back from those Chyliferous Ducts or Veins to the Place of their Origination What this Origination is was long uncertain it not being easie to trace the several Canals up to their several Sources Steno and Malpighius did with infinite Labour find that Abundance of Lympheducts passed through those numerous Conglobate Glands that are dispersed in the Abdomen and Thorax which made them think that the Arterious Blood was there purged of its Lympha that was from thence carried off into its proper Place by a Vessel of its own But Mr. Nuck has since found that the Lympheducts arise immediately from Arteries themselves and that many of them are percolated through those Conglobate Glands in their Way to the Receptacle of the Chyle or those Veins which receive them By these and innumerable other Observations the Uses of the Glands of the Body have been found out all agreeing in this one Thing namely that they separate the several Juices that are discernable in the Body from the Mass of the Blood wherein they lay before From their Texture they have of late been divided into Conglomerate and Conglobate The Conglomerate Glands consist of many smaller Glands which lie near one another covered with one common Membrane with one or more common Canals into which the separated Juice is poured by little Pipes coming from every smaller Glandule as in the Liver the Kidneys the Pancreas and Salival Glands of the Mouth The Conglobate Glands are single often without an Excretory Duct of their own only perforated by the Lympheducts Of all which Things as essential to the Nature of Glands the Ancient Anatomists had no sort of Notion The Mucilage of the Joints and Muscles was found out by Dr. Havers He discovered in every Joint particular Glands out of which issues a Mucilaginous Substance whose Nature he examined by numerous Experiments which with the Marrow supplied by the Bones always serves to oil the Wheels that so our Joints and Muscles might answer those Ends of Motion for which Nature designed them This was a very useful Discovery since it makes Abundance of Things that were very obscure in that Part of Anatomy very plain and facile to be understood And among other Things it shews the Use of that excellent Oil which is contained in our Bones and there separated by proper Strainers from the Mass of the Blood especially since by a nice Examination of the true inward Texture of all the Bones and Cartilages of the Body he shew'd how this Oil is communicated to the Mucilage and so united as to perform their Office And if one compares what Dr. Havers says of Bones and Cartilages with what had been said concerning them before him his Observations about their Frame may well be added to some of the noblest of all the former Discoveries These are some of the most remarkable Instances how far the Knowledge of the Frame of our Bodies has been carried in our Age. Several Observations may be made concerning them which will be of Use to the present Question 1. It is evident that only the most visible Things were anciently known such only as might be discovered without great Nicety Muscles and Bones are easily separable their Length is soon traced and their Origination easily known The same may be truly said of large Blood-Vessels and Nerves But when they come to be exquisitely sub-divided when their Smalness will not suffer the Eye much less the Hand to follow them then the Ancients were constantly at a Loss For which Reason they understood none of the Viscera to any tolerable Degree 2. One may perceive that every new Discovery strengthens what went before otherwise the World would soon have heard of it and the erroneous Theories of such Pretenders to new Things would have been exploded and forgotten unless by here and there a curious Man that pleases himself with reading Obsolete Books Nullius in verba is not only the Motto of the ROYAL SOCIETY but a received Principle among all the Philosophers of the present Age And therefore when once any new Discoveries have been examined and received we have more Reason to acquiesce in them than there was formerly This is evident in the Circulation of the Blood Several Veins and Arteries have been found at least more exactly traced since than they were in Dr.
is to please the Audience was anciently perhaps better answered than now though a Modern Master would then have been dis-satisfied because such Consorts as the Ancient Symphonies properly were in which several Instruments and perhaps Voices played and sung the same Part together cannot discover the Extent and Perfection of the Art which here only is to be considered so much as the Compositions of our Modern Opera's From all this it may perhaps be not unreasonable to conclude that though those Charms of Musick by which Men and Beasts Fishes Fowls and Serpents were so frequently enchanted and their very Natures changed be really and irrecoverably lost yet the Art of Musick that is to say of Singing and Playing upon Harmonious Instruments is in it self much a perfecter Thing though perhaps not much pleasanter to an unskilful Audience than it ever was amongst the Ancient Greeks and Romans CHAP. XXV Of Ancient and Modern Physick AFter these Mathematical Sciences it is convenient to go to those which are more properly Physical and in our Language alone peculiarly so called What these want in Certainty they have made up in Usefulness For if Life and Health be the greatest good Things which we can enjoy here a Conjectural Knowledge that may but sometimes give us Relief when those are in danger is much more valuable than a certain knowledge of other Things which can only employ the Understanding or furnish us with such Conveniencies as may be spared since we see that several Nations which never had them lived very happily and did very great Things in the World Before I begin my Comparison between Ancient and Modern Skill in Physick it may be necessary to state the Difference between an Empirick and a Rational Physician and to enquire how far a Rational Physician may reason right as to what relates to the curing of his Patient's Distemper though his general Hypotheses be wrong and his Theories in themselves considered insufficient An Empirick is properly he who without considering the Constitution of his Patient the Symptoms of his Disease or those Circumstances of his Case which arise from outward Accidents administers such Physick as has formerly done good to some Body else that was tormented with a Disease which was called by the same Name with this that his Patient now labours under A Rational Physician is he who critically enquires into the Constitution and peculiar Accidents of Life of the Person to whom he is to administer who weighs all the known Virtues of the Medicines which may be thought proper to the Case in hand who balances all the Symptoms and from past Observations finds which have been fatal and which safe which arise from outward Accidents and which from the Disease it self And who thence collects which ought soonest to be removed which may be neglected and which should be preserved or augmented and thereupon prescribes accordingly Now it is evident that such a Man's Prescriptions may be very valuable because founded upon repeated Observations of the Phaenomena of all Diseases And he may form Secondary Theories which like Ptolemee's Eccentricks and Epicycles shall be good Guides to Practice not by giving a certain Insight into the first Causes and several Steps by which the Disease first began and was afterwards carried on but by enabling the Physician to make lucky Conjectures at proper Courses and fit Medicines whereby to relieve or cure his Patient And this may be equally successful whether he resolves every Thing into Hot or Cold Moist or Dry into Acids or Alkali's into Salt Sulphur or Mercury or into any Thing else He does not know for Instance that Spittle Bile and the Pancreatick Juice are the main Instruments of Digestion yet he sees that his Patient digests his Meat with great Difficulty He is sure that as long as that lasts the sick Man cannot have a good Habit of Body he finds that the Distemper arises sometimes though not always from a visible Cause and he has tried the Goodness of such and such Medicines in seemingly parallel Cases He may be able therefore to give very excellent Advice though he cannot perhaps dive into the Nature of the Distemper so well as another Man who having greater Anatomical Helps and being accustomed to reason upon more certain Physiological Principles has made a strict Enquiry into that very Case And so by Consequence though he cannot be said to know so much of the Essence of the Disease as that other Man yet perhaps their Method of Practice notwithstanding the great Disparity of each others Knowledge shall be in the main the same Though all this seems very certain yet in the Argument before us it is not an easie Thing to state the Question so equally as to satisfie all contending Sides He that looks into the Writings of the Generality of the Rational Physicians as they called themselves by way of Eminence that is to say of those who about Fifty Years ago set up Hippocrates and Galen as the Parents and Perfecters of Medicinal Knowledge will find throughout all their Writings great Contempt of every Thing that is not plainly deducible from those Texts On the other Hand If he dips into the Books of the Chymical Philosophers he will meet with equal Scorn of those Books and Methods which they in Derision have called Galenical And yet it is evident that practising Physicians of both Parties have often wrought very extraordinary Cures by their own Methods So that there seems to have been equal Injustice of all Hands in excluding all Methods of Cure not built upon their own Principles Here therefore without being positive in a Dispute about which the Parties concerned are not themselves agreed I shall only offer these few Things 1. That if the Greatness of any one particular Genius were all that was to be looked after Hippocrates alone seems to have been the Man whose Assertions in the Practical Part of Physick might be blindly received For he without the Help of any great Assistances that we know of did that which if it were still to do would seem sufficient to employ the united Force of more than one Age. He was scrupulously exact in distinguishing Diseases in observing the proper Symptoms of each and taking notice of their Times and Accidents thereby to make a Judgment how far they might be esteemed dangerous and how far safe Herein his particular Excellency seems to have lain and this in the Order of Knowledge is the first Thing that a Rational Physician ought to make himself Master of Which is a sure Argument that Hippocrates throughly understood what Things were necessary for him to study with the greatest Care in order to make his Writings always useful to Posterity 2. That though we should allow the Methods of Practice used by the Ancients to have been as perfect nay perfecter than those now in use which some great Men have eagerly contended for yet it does not follow that they understood the whole Compass of their Profession
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
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