Of the impediments which have been in the affections, the principle
whereof hath been despair or diffidence, and the strong apprehension
of the difficulty, obscurity, and infiniteness which belongeth to the
invention of knowledge, and that men have not known their own
strength, and that the supposed difficulties and vastness of the work
is rather in shew and muster than in state or substance where the
true way is taken. That this diffidence hath moved and caused some
never to enter into search, and others when they have been entered
either to give over or to seek a more compendious course than can
stand with the nature of true search. That of those that have
refused and prejudged inquiry, the more sober and grave sort of wits
have depended upon authors and traditions, and the more vain and
credulous resorted to revelation and intelligence with spirits and
higher natures. That of those that have entered into search, some
having fallen upon some conceits which they after consider to be the
same which they have found in former authors, have suddenly taken a
persuasion that a man shall but with much labour incur and light upon
the same inventions which he might with ease receive from others; and
that it is but a vanity and self-pleasing of the wit to go about
again, as one that would rather have a flower of his own gathering,
than much better gathered to his hand. That the same humour of sloth
and diffidence suggesteth that a man shall but revive some ancient
opinion, which was long ago propounded, examined, and rejected. And
that it is easy to err in conceit that a man's observation or notion
is the same with a former opinion, both because new conceits must of
necessity be uttered in old words, and because upon true and
erroneous grounds men may meet in consequence or conclusion, as
several lines or circles that cut in some one point. That the
greatest part of those that have descended into search have chosen
for the most artificial and compendious course to induce principles
out of particulars, and to reduce all other propositions unto
principles; and so instead of the nearest way, have been led to no
way or a mere labyrinth. That the two contemplative ways have some
resemblance with the old parable of the two moral ways, the one
beginning with incertainty and difficulty, and ending in plainness
and certainty, and the other beginning with shew of plainness and
certainty, and ending in difficulty and incertainty. Of the great
and manifest error and untrue conceit or estimation of the
infiniteness of particulars, whereas indeed all prolixity is in
discourse and derivations; and of the infinite and most laborious
expense of wit that hath been employed upon toys and matters of no
fruit or value. That although the period of one age cannot advance
men to the furthest point of interpretation of nature, (except the
work should be undertaken with greater helps than can be expected),
yet it cannot fail in much less space of time to make return of many
singular commodities towards the state and occasions of man's life.
That there is less reason of distrust in the course of interpretation
now propounded than in any knowledge formerly delivered, because this
course doth in sort equal men's wits, and leaveth no great advantage
or preeminence to the perfect and excellent motions of the spirit.
That to draw a straight line or to make a circle perfect round by aim
of hand only, there must be a great difference between an unsteady
and unpractised hand and a steady and practised, but to do it by rule
or compass it is much alike.