Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/362

 Men are of all other the most easy: There a Man meets with little stubbornness of Matter: He may choose his Subject where he likes; he may fashion and turn it as he pleases: Whereas when he comes abroad into the World, he must endure more Contradiction: More Difficulties are to be overcome; and he cannot always follow his own Genius: so that it is not to be wonder'd, that so many great Wits have despis'd the labour of a practical Course; and have rather chosen to shut themselves up from the Noise and Preferments of the World, to converse in the Shadow with the pleasant Productions of their own Fancies.

And this perhaps is the reason why the most extraordinary Men of Arts in all Ages, are generally observ'd to be the greatest Humourists: They are so full of the sweetness of their own Conceptions, that they become Morose, when they are drawn from them, they cannot easily make their Minds ductil and pliable to others Tempers, and so they appear untractable, and unskilful in Conversation.

From this I shall also free the Experimental Philosopher. The Satisfaction that he finds, is not imaginary, but real: It is drawn from Things that are not out of the World, but in it: It does not carry him farther off, but brings him nearer to Practice. 'Tis true, that Knowledge which is only founded on Thoughts and Words, has seldom any other end, but the breeding and increasing of more Thoughts and Words: But that which is built on Works (as his will be) will naturally desire to discover, to augment, to apply, to communicate it self by more Works.

Nor can it be thought, that his Mind will be made to languish by this pleasure of Observation, and to have any Aversion from the difficulty and tediousness Rh