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CAP. 19.
Of the impediments which have been in the affections,
the principle whereof hath been despair or diffidence, and the strong
apprehension of the difficulty, obscurity, and infiniteness which belongeth
to the invention of knowledge, and that men have not known their own
strength, and that the supposed difficulties and vastness of the work is
rather in shew and muster than in state or substance where the true way is
taken. That this diffidence hath moved and caused some never to enter into
search, and others when they have been entered either to give over or to
seek a more compendious course than can stand with the nature of true
search. That of those that have refused and prejudged inquiry, the more
sober and grave sort of wits have depended upon authors and traditions, and
the more vain and credulous resorted to revelation and intelligence with
spirits and higher natures. That of those that have entered into search,
some having fallen upon some conceits which they after consider to be the
same which they have found in former authors, have suddenly taken a
persuasion that a man shall but with much labour incur and light upon the
same inventions which he might with ease receive from others; and that it
is but a vanity and self-pleasing of the wit to go about again, as one that
would rather have a flower of his own gathering, than much better gathered
to his hand. That the same humour of sloth and diffidence suggesteth that a
man shall but revive some ancient opinion, which was long ago propounded,
examined, and rejected. And that it is easy to err in conceit that a man's
observation or notion is the same with a former opinion, both because new
conceits must of necessity be uttered in old words, and because upon true
and erroneous grounds men may meet in consequence or conclusion, as several
lines or circles that cut in some one point. That the greatest part of
those that have descended into search have chosen for the most artificial
and compendious course to induce principles out of particulars, and to
reduce all other propositions unto principles; and so instead of the
nearest way, have been led to no way or a mere labyrinth. That the two
contemplative ways have some resemblance with the old parable of the two
moral ways, the one beginning with incertainty and difficulty, and ending
in plainness and certainty, and the other beginning with shew of plainness
and certainty, and ending in difficulty and incertainty. Of the great and
manifest error and untrue conceit or estimation of the infiniteness of
particulars, whereas indeed all prolixity is in discourse and derivations;
and of the infinite and most laborious expense of wit that hath been
employed upon toys and matters of no fruit or value. That although the
period of one age cannot advance men to the furthest point of
interpretation of nature, (except the work should be undertaken with
greater helps than can be expected), yet it cannot fail in much less
space of time to make return of many singular commodities towards the state
and occasions of man's life. That there is less reason of distrust in the
course of interpretation now propounded than in any knowledge formerly
delivered, because this course doth in sort equal men's wits, and leaveth
no great advantage or preeminence to the perfect and excellent motions of
the spirit. That to draw a straight line or to make a circle perfect round
by aim of hand only, there must be a great difference between an unsteady
and unpractised hand and a steady and practised, but to do it by rule or
compass it is much alike.
[@ Works III, 249-50]
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