Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/642

 604 Readings in European History advantage from the company of others. And if they can endure this also, they will find their industry and large- ness of mind no slight hindrance to their fortune. For the studies of men in these places are confined and, as it were, imprisoned in the writings of certain authors, from whom, if any man dissent, he is straightway arraigned as a tur- bulent person and an innovator. ... In matters of state, change even for the better is distrusted, because it unsettles what is established ; these things resting on authority, con- sent, fame, and opinion, not on demonstration ; but arts , and sciences should be like mines where the noise of new works and further advances is heard on every side. . . . No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed. Great hopes of Now if any one of ripe age, unimpaired senses, and well- ^*P^ ri ™ ental purged mind apply himself anew to experience and partic- ulars, better hopes may be entertained of that man. In which point I promised to myself a like fortune to that of Alexander the Great, [who, according to Titus Livius,] "had done no more than take courage to despise vain apprehensions." And a like judgment I suppose may be passed on myself in future ages : that I did no great things, but simply made less account of things that were counted great. In the meanwhile, as I have already said, there is no hope except in a new birth of science ; that is, in rais- ing it regularly up from experience and building it afresh ; which no one, I think, will say has yet been done or thought of. The natural suspicion which is always aroused by new scientific discoveries and theories apparently in conflict with accepted ideas is well indicated by the science.