Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/360

 future Ages, will undoubtedly prove as long as Art it self.

They farther object against Learning, That it makes our minds too Lofty and Romantic, and inclines them to form more perfect Imaginations of the Matters we are to practise than the Matters themselves will bear. I cannot deny but a meer contemplative Man is obnoxious to this Error: He converses chiefly in his Closet, with the Heads and Notions of Things, and so discerns not their Bottoms near and distinctly enough: And thence he is subject to overlook the little Circumstances, on which all human Actions depend. He is still reducing all Things to standing Doctrines; and therefore must needs be liable to neglect the Opportunities, to set upon Business too soon, or too late; to put those Things together in his Mind, which have no agreement in Nature. But this above all is his greatest Danger, that thinking it still becomes him to go out of the ordinary Way, and to refine and heighten the Conceptions of the Vulgar, he will be ready to disdain all the Natural and easy ways of Practice, and to believe that nothing ought to be done, though never so common, but by some device of Art, and trick of unusual Wisdom.

From these Inconveniences the Experimenter is secure: He invents not what he does out of himself; but gathers it from the Footsteps and Progress of Nature. He looks on every Thing standing equal to it, and not as from a higher Ground: He labours about the plain and undigested Objects of his Senses, without considering them as they are joyn'd into common Notions. He has an Opportunity of understanding the most natural Ways by which all Things are