Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/33

 may be indebted to an Enemy for it. Barbarous and Polite are Words which rather referr to Matters of Breeding and Elegance, than of Sound Judgment, or Common Sense; which first shew themselves in making Provision for Things of Convenience, and evident Interest, wherein Men scarce ever commit palpable Mistakes. So that it seems unaccountable that the History of Learning and Arts should be of so confessedly late a Date, if the Things themselves had been very many Ages older; much more if the World had been Eternal.

Besides these, I had a Third Reason to engage me to this Undertaking; which was, the Pleasure and Usefulness of those Studies to which it necessarily led me: For Discoveries are most talked of in the Mechanical Philosophy, which has been but lately revived in the World. Its Professors had drawn in to it the whole Knowledge of Nature, which,