Page:Hudibras - Volume 2 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/60

246 Or any science understand, Beyond the reach of eye or hand; But measuring all things by their own Knowledge, hold nothing's to be known: Those wholesale critics, that in coffee- Houses cry down all philosophy, And will not know upon what ground In nature we our doctrine found, Altho' with pregnant evidence We can demonstrate it to sense, As I just now have done to you, Foretelling what you came to know. Were the stars only made to light Robbers and burglarers by night? To wait on drunkards, thieves, gold-finders, And lovers solacing behind doors? Or giving one another pledges Of matrimony under hedges? Or witches simpling, and on gibbets Cutting from malefactors snippets? Or from the pill'ry tips of ears Of rebel-saints and perjurers? Only to stand by, and look on, But not know what is said or done? Is there a constellation there That was not born and bred up here; And therefore cannot be to learn In any inferior concern?