Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/66

 got their knowlege from conversing with the living and polite, so these boast of having theirs from books and study. Bred up all their lives in colleges, they have there learned to think in track, servilely to follow the leader of their sect, and only to adopt such opinions, as their universities, or the inquisition, are pleased to allow. By this means, they are behind the rest of Europe, in several modern improvements. Afraid to think for themselves; and universities seldom admit opinions as true, till universally received among the rest of mankind. In short, were I to personize my ideas of learning in this country, I would either represent it in the tawdry habits of the stage, or else in the more homely guise of bearded school-philosophy.