Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 002.djvu/12

 of note for anything else but honest Moralities, did neglect the Mathematicks? What free-born Child, or yet what Slave, of any promising hopes, was not entered into these Disciplines, before they could number ten years of their Age. If these men would addict their palats to the pure fountains, and not wander after every poluted stream, then they would find more leasure for better things, to do some good for themselves and others: Then they would taste the pleasure,and reap the profit of their old Rule,

Dulcius ex ipse fonte, &c. And withal they would have better understood their best friends.

Certainly; If Aristotle had been so happy as to have enjoyed our Opticks, and other Instruments of Arts, and such Engins as we now employ, He would have been quite of another spirit than these are; and would have acknowledged a greater variety and more curious contexture, and more brisk Mechanicks in the Insectiles, which were in those dayes invisible than in all the Animals that were then known, or than are yet to be found in a far wider circumference; and would have confest the productions of our Pyrotechnical Furnaces to excell all, that could be reasonably expected from his own vast Fiery Region. We say heartily, Read Aristotle, read him in his own Stile; read him entirely and fully; not feeding onely on his Ulcers and Excrescencies; nor taking up your rest in his Un-intelligible Heavens, at their Adamantine Gates, or about their Flaming Walls: Embrace his calm rayes, and his dis-interessed Reasonings: chuse his best Vertues, examine and weigh all his Mathematical Illustrations, descend to his particulars. And then hasten to our Christian Philosophers, and they will forth-with acquaint you with the true Works and wonderful Contrivances of the Supreme Author, and with the Discoveries, which by his indulgent Providence and his benigne Inspirations have been in former and later Ages afforded, for the benefit, and the sincerely grateful acknowledgements of humane race. 'Tis our main business, as well to retrive all vauable Antiquities, as to supply fresh Discoveries to recover good Old Helps, as well as to devise New. All our Artifice are designed, and appropriated, to unlock all the Repositories of Nature, To draw out her most concealed Operations and Rarities, To produce them with