Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/95

Rh what the others represent to their View. It seems strange to me, that Men should conspire to believe all things more perplexed, and difficult, than indeed they are. This may be shewn in most other Matters; but in this particular in hand, it is most evident, Men did generally think, that no Man was fit to meddle in Matters of this Consequence, but he that had bred himself up in a long Course of Discipline for that Purpose; that had the Habit, the Gesture, the Look of a Philosopher: Whereas Experience, on the contrary, tells us, that greater Things are produc'd by the free way, than the formal. This Mistake may well be compar'd to the Conceit we had of Soldiers, in the beginning of the civil Wars. None was thought worthy of that Name, but he that could shew his Wounds, and talk aloud of his Exploits in the Low Countries: Whereas the whole Business of fighting, was afterwards chiefly perform'd by untravel'd Gentlemen, raw Citizens, and Generals that had scarce ever before seen a Battle. But to say no more, it is so far from being a Blemish, that it is rather the Excellency of this Institution, that Men of various Studies are introduced. For so there will be always many sincere Witnesses standing by, whom Self-love will not persuade to report falsly, nor Heat of Invention carry to swallow a Deceit too soon; as having themselves no Hand in the making of the Experiment, but only in the Inspection. So cautious ought Men to be, in pronouncing even upon Matters of Fact. The whole Care is not to be trusted to single Men; not to a Company all of one Mind; not to Philosophers; not to devout and religious Men alone: By all these we have been already deluded; even by those whom I last named, who ought most of all to abhor Falshood; of whom yet many have Rh