Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/88

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66
The HISTORY of

follow the Shore; wind about leisurably; and insinuate their useful Alterations by soft and unperceivable Degrees. From the Neglect of this Prudence, we often see Men of great Wit, to have been overborn by the Multitude of their Opposers; and to have found all their subtile Projects too weak for Custom and Interest: While being a little too much heated with a Love of their own Fancies, they have raised to themselves more Enemies than they needed to have done, by defying at once too many Things in Use. But here this Danger is very well prevented. For what Suspicion can Divinity, Law, or Physick, or any other Course of Life have, that they shall be impair'd by these Men's Labours; when they themselves are as capable of fitting amongst them as any others? Have they not the same Security that the whole Nation has for its Lives and Fortunes? Of which this is esteemed the Establishment, that Men of all Sorts and Qualities, give their Voice in every Law that is made in Parliament. But the other Benefit is, that by this equal Balance of all Professions, there will no one Particular of them overweigh the other, or make the Oracle only speak their private Sense; which else it were impossible to avoid. It is natural to all Ranks of Men, to have some one Darling, upon which their Care is chiefly fixed. If Mechanicks alone were to make a Philosophy, they would bring it all into their Shops, and force it wholly to consist of Springs, and Wheels, and Weights; if Physicians, they would not depart far from their Art; scarce any Thing would be considered, besides the Body of Man, the Causes, Signs, and Cures of Diseases. So much is to be found in Men of all Conditions, of that which is called Pedantry in Scholars; which is no-

thing