Chapter 21 - CONCLUSION
Chapter 21 - CONCLUSION
1.We have seen in how many truths of the greatest importance the ancients preceded the moderns, or at least pointed out, or prepared the way for their discoveries. It appears also, that the latter have not always bad the disinterestedness to own, that the former guided them in attaining their ends. And here it may not be amiss to remark, that those very philosophers, when their opinions were attacked, or when they dreaded they might be so, recurred to the authority of those great men, to put envy and calumny to silence. Descartes, Mallebranche, and some Newtonians, are instances of this.
2.The first of these, at the conclusion of his principles of philosophy, advertises the reader, that he had advanced nothing but what had been authorised by Aristotle, Democritus, and many other philosophers of antiquity. Mallebranche, observing his system accused not only of being false, but of being impious, immediately bad recourse to the authority of St. Augustin. And some Newtonians, upon seeing that attraction was by many regarded as a mere whim, set about proving, that the ancients owned and taught it; trusting by this to open a reception for it. Some, to conciliate the favour of the public, have had resource to the authority of the ancients ; others, upon being attacked, have tied to them for succour and protection. Others again, distrusting their own ability to support what they advanced, have rather chosen to abdicate the glory of invention, than give up their favourite ideas a prey to their adversaries ; and have therefore, to put them out of reach, placed their origin at a vast distance. Nor are there wanting those, who seeing themselves secure of success, in hazarding certain opinions, have ventured to pass them under their own names, though they belong to others ; and observing, that they were not reclaimed to their real authors by the public, have silently gloried in their borrowed lustre; many conscious that they had no right, and some., though few in number, thinking that they had.
3.What little we have taken notice of respecting the conduct of Descartes, Locke, and Mallebranche, is sufficient to authorize what we here advance. Descartes bath not specified the authors, from whom in particular he derived his thoughts. He only says in general that the greatest philosophers of antiquity have thought as he has done. Locke hath passed for an original, though his principles be the same with those of Aristotle, and his distinctions just such as were employed by the stoics. Mallebranche did not at first avow,’ that his opinion was the same with that of the Chaldeans, Permenides, Plato, and St. Augustin ; but when he saw himself warmly attacked by his adversaries, against the philosophical part of them, he held up the buckler of Plato, whilst he fled to St. Augustin for shelter against the divines. The glory of having been the first, who clearly distinguisheth: the properties of the mind from those of the body, and demonstratad, that sensible qualities had their existence in the mind of the percipient, and not in the object perceived, hath been wrongfully ascribed to Descartes ; since we have seen, that he was preceded in all these’ respects by Lencippus, Democritus, Flato, Strato, Aristippus, Plutarch, and Sextus Empiricus.
4.Leibnits hath not only revived the doctrine of Pythagoras; but employed the very same arguments, which the Pythagoreans made use of to demonstrate the necessity of admitting the existence of simple and uncompounded things, anterior to those that were compounded, and as being the foundation of the existence of body itself. Mr. de Buffon hath sometimes quoted Aristotle and Hippocrates, but never when there was any inquiry about the groundwork of his system, which has always been thought to be new, though it appears to be almost entirely: the same with that of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Piotinus. According to the system of Pythagoras, Plato and Epicurus, the production of every thing in nature was ascribed to the concurrent force of simple and active principles, long before Mr. Needham thought of it. The philosophy of Gassendi and the Newtonians, is no other than that of Moschus, Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus. The acceleration.. of motion was known to, Aristotle, and the best manner of accounting” for it is that which he makes use of. Lucretius observed long before Galileo, that bodies the most unequal in weight, such as gold and down, must descend with equal velocity in a vacuum.
Universal gravity attractive, centripetal, and centrifugal force, were clearly indicated by Anaxagoras, Plato, Airstotle, Plutarch, and Lucretius. We have’ also seen, that, without the aid of telescopes, Democritus and Phavorinus entertained very just ideas of the milky way, and predicated the discovery of the satellites ; that a plurality of worlds, and the doctrine of vortices, were clearly and with precision taught by the ancients; and that Plato had a notion of the theory of colours. We have seen, that two thousand years before Copernicus, Pythagoras had proposed the same system; and that Plato, Aristarchus, and many others, had admitted it; as they did, also, without difficulty. the doctrine of antipodes, which though very reasonable in itself, had so much difficulty is gaining a reception among us. The revolution of the planets about their own axis was known also in the schools of Pythagoras and Plato. There was nothing left to the moderns to say new, respecting the return of comets, their nature, and their orbits. The Chaldeans, Egyptians, Pythagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates of Chios, Artemidorus, and Seneca, had already fully settled the theory of them ; though the moderns, it is true, demonstrated more clearly some parts of it. The mountains, valleys, and inhabitants of the moon, had been suggested and supposed by Orpheus, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and Democritus.
5.Aristotle knew the weight of the air; Seneca its spring anti elasticity. Lucippius, Chrysippus, Aristophanes, and the stoics, had fully accounted for thunder and earthquakes. Pytheas, and Seleucus of Erytherea, preceded Descartes in explaining the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the sea ; and PlinAcibre Sir Isaac Newton had made mention, in that case, of the combined forces of sun and moon.
6.We have also seen, that Hippocrates and Plato knew the circulation of the blood, and that Rufus described, sixteen hundred years ago, the various parastatae, called by, us the Fallopian tubes. And by the sentiment of an able surgeon of the present age, we have shown, that there were as great advances made in that art a thousand years ago, as there are at present. The art of working metals, of rendering gold potable, glass ductile and malleable ; that of distillation, of painting upon glass, of making gunpowder, and a thousand other chemical preparations, with which we have proved the ancients to have been acquainted, leave not the least doubt of their skill in chemistry. We have seen, that the sentiment of Harvey. Steno, and B.hedi, respecting generation by eggs, was only a renewal of what had been taught by Hippocrates, Empedocles, Aristotle, and Macrobius ; and the system of Hartsoeker, and Leuwenhoeck, with respect to spermatic animalcula, is found in Aristotle, Hippocrates, Plato, Lactantius, and Plutarch. And the sexual system of plants, the merit of discovering which we chiefly assigned to Morland, Grew, Vaillant, and Linnacus, was accurately expounded by Empedocles, Theophrastus, Pliny, and Diodorus Siculus.
7.Though we did not employ much time in our survey of mathematics and geometry, yet we made it appear, that the noblest discoveries in those sciences were made by the ancients. All the English geometricians agree with Leibnits and Wolf in acknowledging, that, notwithstanding all the attempts made by the ablest geometricians in these last ages, Euclid’s method still remains the most accurate and perfect. We observed, that the most difficult problems in those sciences were solved by Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes, and Apollonius. We have seen, that their mechanical contrivances were carried to such a pitch, as to surpass even the conception of the most learned among us. Archimedes’s burning-glasses furnished us with an instance of this. Their application of the equal vibration of the pendulum, their knowledge of the refraction of light, and their attempts to square the circle, their discovery of the fundamental propositions of geometry, and above all that of algebra, and the pre cession of the equinoxes, afford convincing proofs of the depth and acuteness of the genius of the ancients. We have also made it appear, that microscopes were not unknown to them; and that in the arts of pointing, sculpture, and the science of music, they not only equalled, but even surpassed us. In laying before the” eyes. of the reader, a sketch of the admirable works of the ancients in architecture, and in the art of war, we have likewise given proofs, that they were no less able in the arts, than in the sciences; insomuch that there is no part of knowledge in which they have not: either preceded us, directed, or surpassed us.
8.Now, if it hath been demonstrated, that the writings of those great masters contain the greatest part of what is to be known, that the most celebrated discoveries of the moderns have thence derived their origin; is it not very reasonable, that we should rather go to the fountain head of science, than to confine ourselves entirely to the little streams that issue from it ! But in recommending the study of the ancients, I am far from thinking that the moderns are to be neglected. I apprehend, on the contrary, that it is of great use attentively to consider their labours in order to remark what they have added to the knowledge of the ancients by their experiments; for without doubt there may be daily added something to our knowledge. This makes it necessary attentively to compare the ancients and moderns together; for in these last many things may be found, which have ever been omitted, or but obscurely treated of in the former. Nay, farther, the labours of the moderns may serve to replace, as it were, some of those treatises of the ancients, which have been lost, and of which there now remain only the titles, to give us an idea of the greatness of our loss. Another advantage, which may arise from this comparison, is, to sustain us in our reflections; for where the ancients, and moderns agree, it is natural, that their joint consent should determine our judgment in such or such a point. And even when they differ, the diversity of their reasonings may tend to throw light on the mind.
9.Free from partiality towards either, we ought to think, that whatever efforts have been made to bring our knowledge to perfection, there will remain something still to be done in that respect, by us and our posterity. There is no man sufficient of himself to establish or perfect any one art or science. Having received from our ancestors the product of all their meditations and researches, we ought daily to add what we can to it, and by that means contribute all in our power to the increase and perfection of knowledge. Let us put on the disposition of Seneca, who expresses himself on ‘this subject with his usual eloquence. "I ‘hold in great veneration says be, “the inventions of the wise, and the inventors themselves. This is an inheritance, which every one may and ought to lay claim to. To me they have been transmitted; for me they have been found out. But let us in this,” continues he, “act like good managers ; let us improve what we have received, and convey this heritage to our descendants, in better condition than it came to us. Much remains for us to do; much will remain for those who come after us. A thousand years hence, there will stilt be occasion, and still opportunity, to add something to the common stock. But had every thing’ been found out by...the ancients, there would still this remain to be done anew, to put their inventions into use, and make their knowledge When I first read over the preceding treatise, I bad had little though or design of making so large an extract from it. But I afterward considered, 1. That this might be a means of making that valuable work more extensively known, (as men of learning would naturally desire to see and examine the proofs at large ;) and, That it might serve for a kind of recapitulation of the preceding volumes. Such a recapitulation as, on the one hand, could not be unentertaining to the sensible reader; and on the other, might repress the vanity which is apt to arise in our minds, when we imagine we have made new discoveries Alas! how little new has been discovered, even by Gassendi, Mallebranche, Mr. Locke, or Sir Isaac Newton! How plain is it, that is philosophy, as well as the course of human affairs, “ there is nothing new under the sun !" The more we consider this, the more we shall be convinced of the inconceivable littleness of human knowledge. But although with our utmost efforts, we can know so small a part of the things that surround us, yet we can know, and that with the greatest certainty, our’ whole duty to Him that made them. And what can we reasonably desire more For “this is the whole of man,” (which is the literal rendering of Solomon’s words) his whole business, his whole happiness, In this our infant state we cannot know much: but we may love much. Let us secure this point, and we shall soon be swallowed up in the ocean both of Knowledge and Love!
London, November 16, 1777.