Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/322

 sham. And these are such Instruments of real Knowledge, that though we will allow the Ancients to have done all that great Genii, with due Application, could arrive at; yet, for want of them, their Philosophical Argumentation could not come up to the present Pitch; not being able to fathom the boundless Depths of the Heavens, nor to unravel the Minutiæ of Nature, without the Assistance of the Glasses we are now possessed of'.

William Temple having assured us (x), that it is agreed by the Learned, that the Science of Musick, so admired by the Ancients, is wholly lost in the World: And that what we have now, is made up of certain Notes that fell into the Fancy of a poor Friar, in chanting his Mattins. It may seem improper to speak of Musick here, which ought rather to have been ranked amongst those Sciences, wherein the Moderns have, upon a strict Enquiry, been found to have been out-done by