Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/71

Rh the dead, which such Men pretend to, is rather a worshipping of themselves, than of the Antients? It may be well prov'd, that they are more in Love with their own Commentaries, than with the Texts of those, whom they seem to make their Oracles; and that they chiefly doat on those Theories, which they themselves have drawn from them; which, it is likely, are almost as far distant from the original Meaning of their Authors, as the Positions of the new Philosophers themselves.

But to conclude this Argument (for I am weary of walking in a Road so trodden) I think I am able to confute such Men by the Practice of those very Antients, to whom they stoop so low. Did not they trust themselves, and their own Reasons? Did not they busie themselves in Inquiry, make new Arts, establish new Tenets, overthrow the old, and order all Things as they pleas'd, without any servile Regard to their Predecessors? The Grecians all, or the greatest Part of them, fetch'd their Learning from Egypt; and did they blindly assent to all that was taught them by the Priests of Isis and Osiris? If so; then why did they not, .together with their Arts, receive all the infinite Idolatries, which their Matters embrac'd? Seeing it is not to be question'd, but the Egyptians deliver'd the Rites of their Religion to Strangers, with as much Solemnity at least, as they did the Mysteries of their Hieroglyphicks, or Philosophy. Now then, let  Pythagoras,  Plato, and  Aristotle, and the rest of their wise Men, be our Examples, and we are safe. When they travell'd into the East, they collected what was fit for their Purpose, and suitable to the Genius of their Country, and left the Superfluities behind them: They brought home some Rh