Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/361

. He clearly beholds all the secret Accidents and Turnings, Advantages and Failings of Nature. He endeavours rather to know, than to admire; and looks upon Admiration, not as the End, but the imperfection of our Knowledge.

The next hindrance of Action, is an obstinacy of Resolution, and a want of Dexterity, to change our apprehensions of Things according to Occasions. This is the more destructive, because it carries with it the most solemn appearance of Wisdom. There is scarce any thing that renders a Man so useless, as a perverse sticking to the same things in all times, because he has sometimes found them to have been in Season. But now in this, there is scarce any Comparison to be made, between him who is only a thinking Man, and a Man of Experience. The first does commonly establish his constant Rules, by which he will be guided: The later makes none of his Opinions irrevocable. The one if he mistakes, receives his Errors from his Understanding; the other only from his Senses; and so he may correct, and alter them with more ease. The one fixes his Opinion as soon; the other doubts as long as he can. The one chiefly strives to be unmovable in his Mind; the other to enlarge, and amend his Knowledge: And from hence the one is inclin'd to be presumptuous, the other modest in his Judgement.

The next pretence, on which men of Learning are wont to be vilified, is, that they use to be so much affected with the pleasant Musings of their own Thoughts, as to abhor the Roughness, and Toyl of Business. This Accusation I confess, is not altogether groundless. The solitary Imaginations of