he offers to confideration, the fatisfactions and content of a full revenge, and the emiffions of anger. To the envious he makes panegyrics of our rivals and fwells our fancies to opinion, and our opinion to felf-love, felflove to arrogance, and these are supported by contempt of others, and all determine upon envy and expire in malice. Let us be fure that the Devil take not a helve from our own branches to fit his axe, that fo he may cut down the tree.-JEREMY TAYLOR. Afsurance. HE obedient and the man of practice, fhall outrun all their doubts and ignorances; till perfuafion pass into knowledge, and knowledge advance into affurance.-DR. SOUTH. 2. THIS is not the grace of hope, but a good natural affurance or confidence, which Ariftotle obferves young men to be full of and old men not fo inclined to.-HAMMOND. C Atheism. OD never wrought miracles to convince Atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.-LORD BACON. 2. ATHEISM is the refult of ignorance and pride; of ftrong fenfe and feeble reasons; of good eating and ill living. It is the plague of fociety, the corrupter of manners and the underminer of property.-JEREMY COLLIER, 3. No atheist, as fuch, can be a true friend, an affectionate relation or a loyal fubject.-DR. BENTLEY. 4. AN atheist, if you will take his word for it, is a very defpicable mortal. Let us defcribe him by his tenet and copy him a little from his own original. He is, then, no better than a heap of organized dust, a ftalking machine, a fpeaking head without a foul in it. His thoughts are bound by the laws of motion, his actions are all prescribed. He has no more liberty than the current of a ftream or the blaft of a tempeft; and where there is no choice there can be no merit.-JEREMY COLLIER. Athenian Juries. HAVE always been of opinion, with the learned antiquary Dr. Pettingal, that the Athenian JUDGES might with propriety be called Jurymen; and that the Athenian Juries differed from ours in very few particulars. -SIR WILLIAM JONES. Avarice. VARICE is infatiable and is al ways pushing on for more. 2. AVARICE keeps a man always in the wheel and makes him a slave for his life-time; and his head or his hands are perpetually employed. When one project is finished his inclinations roll to another, fo that his reft is only variety of labour. This evil spirit throws him into the fire and into the water and all forts of hazards and hardfhips; and when he has reached the tombs, he fits naked and out of his right mind. JEREMY COLLier. Lord Bacon on Science and Literature. NOTHER defect I note, wherein I shall need fome alchymift to help me, which calls upon men to fell their books and to build furnaces; quitting and forfaking Minerva and the Muses as barren virgins, and relying upon Vulcan. But certain it is, that unto the deep, fruitful and operative ftudy of many fciences, efpecially Natural Philofophy and Phyfic, books be not the only inftruments, wherein also the beneficence of men hath not been altogether wanting for we fee fpheres, globes, aftrolabes, maps and the like, have been provided as appurtenances to Aftronomy and Cofmography, as well as books. We fee, likewise, that fome places inftituted for Phyfic have annexed the commodity of gardens for fimples of all forts, and do likewise command the use of dead bodies for Anatomies. But thefe do but refpect a few things. In general, there will hardly be any main proficience in the difclofing of Nature, except there be fome allowance for expenfes about experiments; whether they be experiments appertaining to Vulcanus or Dædalus, furnace or engine, or any other kind. And therefore as fecretaries and fpials of Princes and States, bring in bills for intelligence, so you must allow the spials and intelligencers of Nature, to bring in their bills; or you shall be ill advertised. And if Alexander made such a liberal affignation to Aristotle of treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers, fifhers and the like, that he might compile an history of Nature; much better do they deserve it, who travail in the arts of Nature. LORD BACON. |