The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!
_The Excursion, Bk. III_. W. WORDSWORTH.
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
_Comus_. MILTON.
In discourse more sweet,
(For eloquence the soul song charms the sense,)
Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame;
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.
Sublime Philosophy!
Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven,
And bright with beckoning angels;--but alas!
We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams.
By the first step,--dull slumbering on the earth.
_Richelieu, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 1. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
Not so the son; he marked this oversight.
And then mistook reverse of wrong for right;
(For What to shun, will no great knowledge need,
But What to follow, is a task indeed!)
_Moral Essays, Epistle III_. A. POPE.
He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.
_Hudibras, Pt. I_. DR. S. BUTLER.
His cogitative faculties immersed
In cogibundity of cogitation.
_Chronon, Act_ i. _Sc_. 1. H. CAREY.
When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"
And proved it--'t was no matter what he said.
_Don Juan, Canto XI_. LORD BYRON.
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought.
And naught is everything and everything is naught.
_Rejected Addresses: Cui Bono_? H. AND J. SMITH.
HORATIO.--O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
HAMLET.--And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
_Hamlet, Act_ i. _Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.