Page:A Treatise upon the Small-Pox.pdf/7



''HE Colleges of Learning employed in enquiring into Nature, and searching after the Causes of Things, for many successive Ages, unhappily proceeded in such Ways and Methods, as rather obstructed than promoted the End they had in View: For they formed nothing but notional Systems, and Schemes of Speculation, falsly called Science, the trifling Play of Fancy, and the idle Labour of the Closet. These curious Subtleties, for want of firm and solid Foundations to rest upon, hung in their Brain, and floated in their Imaginations like fine-wrought Cobwebs, or the loose Threads, that in frosty Mornings are caught in Hedges, or hover in the Air; and for this Reason it is, that natural Science has received'' Rh