How it happens that Men Scarce doubt of Things. The Reason that Men do not doubt of many Things, is, that they never examine common Impreffions: They do not dig to the Root, where the Faults and Defects lie; they only debate upon the Branches: They do not examine whether fuch and fuch a Thing be true, but if it has been fo, and fo understood. It is not enquired into, whether Galen has faid any thing to purpose, but whether he has faid fo or fo. In truth it was very good Reason, that this Curb and Conftraint to the Liberty of our Judgments, and this Tyranny over our Opinions, fhould be extended to the Schools and Arts. The God of Scholaftic Knowledge is Ariftotle: 'Tis irreligious to question any of his Decrees, at it was thofe of Lycurgus at Sparta: His Doctrine is a magifterial Law to us, though peradventure 'tis as falfe as another. Difference of Opinions conral Principles. cerning Natu I do not know, why I fhould not as willingly embrace either the Ideas of Plato, or the Atoms of Epicurus, or the Plenum or Vacuum of Leucippus and Democritus, or the Water of Thales, or the Infinity of Nature of Anaximander, or the Air of Diogenes, or the Members and Symmetry of Pythagoras, or the Infinity of Parmenides, or the One of Mufæus, or the Water and Fire of Apollodorus, or the fimilar Parts of Anagoras, or the Difcord and Friendship of Empedocles, or the Fire of Heraclitus, or any other Opinion (in that infinite Confufion of Opinions and Sentiments, which this fine Human Reason does produce by its Certitude and Clear-fightedness in every thing it meddles withal) as I fhould the Opinion of Ariftotle upon this Subject of the Principles of Natural Things: Which Principles he builds of three Pieces, Matter, Form, and Privation. And what can be more vain, than to make Inanity itself the Caufe of the Production of Things? Privation is a Negative: Of what Humour could he then make the Cause and Original of Things that Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. lib. iii. c. 4. p. 155. *Of Diogenes Apolloniates, apud Sextum Empiricum in Pyrrh. Hypot. This is a further Proof of a former Note in this Chapter, that was Air, and not Age, as Montaigne thought, must be the God of this Philofopher of Apollonia. 3 that are: And yet that were not to be controverted, but for the Exercife of Logic. There is nothing difputed, neither to bring it into Doubt, but to defend the Author of the School from foreign Objections: His Authority is the non ultra, beyond which it is not permited to enquire. It is very eafy upon approved Foundations to build The receiving of Principles without Exa mination liable to all kind of Miftakes. whatever we pleafe; for, according to the Law, and Ordering of the Beginning, the other Parts of the Structure are eafily carried on without any Failure. By this Way we find our Reason well-grounded, and have good Warrant for what we fay; for our Masters. prepoffefs and gain before-hand as much room in our Belief, as is neceffary towards concluding afterwards what they please; as Geometricians do by their granted Demands: The Confent and Approbation we allow them, giving them Power to draw us to the Right and Left, and to whirl us about at their own Pleasure. Whoever will have his Prefuppofitions taken for granted, is our Mafter and God: He will lay the Plan of his Foundations fo ample and easy, that by them he may mount us up to the Clouds, if he fo please. In this Practice and Negociation of Science, we have given intire Credit to the Saying of Pythagoras, That every expert Perfon ought to be believed in his own Art.' The Logician refers the Signification of Words to the Grammarian, the Rhetorician borrows the State of Arguments from the Logician: The Poet his Measure from the Mufician, the Geometrician his Proportions from the Arithmetician, and the Metaphyficians take the Phyfical Conjectures for their Foundations. For every Science has its Principles presuppofed, by which Human Judgment is every-where curbed. If you rush againft this Barrier, where the principal Error lies, they have presently this Sentence in their Mouths, That there is no difputing with Perfons, who deny Principles.' Now Men can have no Principles, if not revealed to them by the Divinity: Of all the reft the Beginning, the Middle, and the End, is nothing but Dream and Vapour. As for thofe that contend upon Prefuppofition, we must on the Contrary prefuppofe to them the 3 fame fame Axiom upon which the Difpute turns. For every human Prefuppofition and Declaration has as much Au thority one as another, if Reafon do not make the Difference. Wherefore they are all to be put into the Balance, and firft the Generals, and thofe that tyrannise over us. The Perfuafion of Certainty is a certain Teftimony of Folly and extreme Uncertainty; and there are not a more foolish fort of Men, nor that are lefs Philofophers, than the Philodoxes of Plato'. We must enquire whether Fire be hot? whether Snow be white? if we know whether there be fuch Things as Hard or Soft? Whether philofophical Uncertainty is determinable by And as to thofe Answers of which they tell old Stories, as he that doubted if there was any fuch Thing as Heat, whom they bid throw himfelf into the Fire; and he that denied the Coldness of Ice, whom they bid put a Cake of Ice into his Bofom; they are pitiful the Experience Things unworthy of the Profeffion of Philo- of the Senfes. fophy. If they had left us in our natural State, to receive the external Appearances of Things according as they present themfelves to us by our Senfes; and had permitted us to follow our own natural Appetites, and be governed by the Condition of our Birth; they might then, have Reason to talk at that Rate, but 'tis from them that we have learned to make ourselves fit up for Judges of the World: 'Tis from them that we derive this Fancy, that human Reafon is Controller-General of all that is above and below the Firmament, that compofes every Thing, that can do every Thing, and, by the Means of which every Thing is known and understood.' This Answer would be good amongst Cannibals, who enjoy the Happinefs of a long, quiet, and peaceable Life, without Ariftotle's Precepts, and without the Knowledge of the Name of Phyfics. This Anfwer would peradventure be of more Value and greater Force than all those they shall borrow VOL. II. from U 1 Perfons who are poffeffed with Opinions of which they know not the Grounds, whofe Heads are intoxicated with Words; who fee and affect only the Appearances of Things.' This is taken from Plato, who has characterised them very particularly at the End of the Fifth Book of his Republic. Book II. from their Reafon and Invention. Of this, all Animals, and all, where the Power of the Law of Nature is yet pure and fimple, would be as capable as we; but thofe they have renounced. They need not tell us, it is true, for you see and feel it fo: They must tell me whether I really feel what I think I do; and, if I do feel it, then let them tell me why I feel it, and how, and what: Let them tell me the Name, Original, the Bounds and Borders of Heat and Cold, the Qualities of the Agent and Patient: Or let them give me up their Profeffion, which is not to admit or approve of any Thing, but by the Way of Reason, that is their Touch-ftone for Effays of every fort. Whether our But certainly 'tis a Teft full of Falfity, Error, Weaknefs, and Defect. Which way can we better prove it, than by itself? If we are not to believe it when speaking of itself, it can hardly be thought fit to judge of exotic Things foreign to it; if it knows any Thing, it will judge of what immediately relates to itself. at least be its own Being and Abode. It is in the Soul, and either a Part or an Effect of it: For true and effential Reafon, from which we, by falfe Colours, borrow the Name, is lodged in the Breaft of the Almighty. There is its Habitation and Recefs, and 'tis from thence that it proceeds, when God is pleased to impart any Ray of it to Mankind; and Pallas iffued from her Father's Head, to communicate herself to the World. Now let us fee what human Reafon tells us of itself, and of the Soul: Not of the Soul in general, of which almost all Philofophy makes the celestial and firft Bodies Participants: Nor of that which Thales attributed to Things, which are themselves reputed inanimate, being moved by the Confideration of the Load-ftone: But of that which appertains to us, and which we ought the best to What Reafon know. Ignoratur enim quæ fit natura animaï, ". Diog. Laert. in the Life of Thales, lib. i. fe&t. 24. An tenebras Orci vifat, vaftáfque lacunas, An pecudes alias divinitùs infinuet fe". i. e. For none the Nature of the Soul doth know, And dies with us when we return to Earth; go. Crates and Dicæarchus were induced to judge from Human Reason, that there was no Soul at all: But that the Body thus ftirs by a Natural Motion: Plato, that it was a Substance moving of itfelf: Thales, a Nature without Repofe: Afclepiades, an Exercifing of the Senfes Hefiod and Anaximander, a Thing composed of • Earth and Water: Parmenides, of Earth and Fire: Empedocles, of Blood '. ' Sanguineam vomit ille animam'. i. e. His Soul he vomited in Streams of Blood. Poffidonius, Cleanthes and Galen,judged from the fame Principle that it was Heat, or a hot Complexion : Igneus eft ollis vigor, et cæleftis origo. Their Vigour is of Fire, and does prove Hippocrates, that it was a Spirit diffufed all over the Body: Varro, that it was an Air received at the Mouth, • heated Lucret. lib. iv. 113, &c. U 2 • Apud Sexc. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. lib. ii. c. 5. p. 57, et adv. Mathem. Tg dewry, p. 201. Dicearchus Phærecratem quendam Phthiotam fenem differentem inducit nihil effe omninò animum, . Cic. Tufc. Quæft. lib. i. c. 10. P De Legibus, lib. 10. p. 668. i. e. According to Plutarch de Placitis Philofophorum, lib. iv. c. 2, which moves of itfelf, auroxívntov. Empedocles Animum effe cenfet, cordi fuffufum fanguine, Cic. Tufc. Quæft. lib. i. c. 9. Virg. Æneid. lib. ix. v. 349. * Idem, ibid. lib. vi. 730. |