Page:A Treatise upon the Small-Pox.pdf/24

xx ''to shew the Vanity and Unreasonableness of propounding the Examples of the Antients, when Arts and Inventions were green and scarcely begun, for the Service and Imitation of others many Ages afterwards, when those Arts and Inventions are brought to a great Degree of Perfection. Grant that Hippocrates was complemented with divine Honours, and that Æsculapius his Predecessor, who if Cicero was rightly informed, practised at first the low Art of drawing Teeth, was for his Skill, such as it was, advanced from so mean a Beginning to the highest Dignity, (strange Rise!) from a Tooth-drawer to a Demigod! yet this is no more than happened to the first Inventors of any Art, that was very commodious and beneficial to Mankind. Bacchus and Ceres had their Priests and Temples, one for his being the first Planter of the Vine, and the other for finding out the Way of sowing Bread-corn; and yet if any Man could give us an Account of the first raw Attempts and imperfect Practice in these Arts, he might indeed gratify the curious Lover of unprofitable Philology, but never oblige the present Age by any useful Knowledge.'' In