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Of the impediments of knowledge, being the 4th chapter, the
preface only of it.
In some things it is more hard to attempt than to
achieve, which falleth out when the difficulty is not so much in the matter
or subject, as it is in the crossness and indisposition of the mind of man
to think of any such thing, to will or to resolve it. And therefore Titus
Livius in his declamatory digression wherein he doth depress and extenuate
the honour of Alexander's conquests saith, Nihil aliud quam bene ausus
vana contemnere: in which sort of things it is the manner of men first
to wonder that any such thing should be possible, and after it is found out
to wonder again how the world should miss it so long. Of this nature I take
to be the
invention and discovery of knowledge, &c.
[@ Works III, 224]
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