Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/138

 Premeditation. For it is certain, that a too sudden Striving to reduce the Sciences, in their Beginnings, into Method, and Shape, and Beauty, has very much retarded their Increase. And it happens to the Invention of Arts, as to Children in their younger Years; in whose Bodies, the same Applications, that serve to make them strait, slender, and comely, are often found very mischievous, to their Ease, their Strength, and their Growth.

By their fair, and equal, and submissive way of Registring nothing but Histories, and Relations; they have left room for others, that shall succeed, to change, to augment, to approve,, to contradict them at their Discretion. By this, they have given Posterity a far greater Power of judging them, than ever they took over those that went before them. By this, they have made a firm Confederacy, between their own present Labours, and the Industry of future Ages; which how beneficial it will prove hereafter, we cannot better guess, than by recollecting, what Wonders it would in all Likelihood have produc'd e'er this, if it had been begun in the Times of the Greeks, or Romans, or Schoolmen; nay even in the last Resurrection of Learning. What Depth of Nature could by this Time have been hid from our View? What Faculty of the Soul would have been in the dark? What Part of human Infirmities not provided against? If our Predecessors, a thousand, nay even a hundred Years ago, had begun to add by little and little to the Store, if they would have endeavour'd to be Benefactors, and not Tyrants over our Reasons; if they would have communicated to us, more of their Works, and less of their Wit.

This Complaint, which I here take up, will appear Rh