We Give No
Credit Now To The Fables That Not Only Amused Antiquity, But Even
Obtained Credit Within A Few Generations.
The authority of Pliny
will not persuade us that there are any nations without heads, whose
eyes and mouths
Are in their breasts, or that the Arimaspi have only
one eye, fixed in their forehead, and that they are perpetually at
war with the Griffins, who guard hidden treasures; or that there are
nations that have long hairy tales, and grin like monkeys. No
traveller can make us believe that, under the torrid zone, there are
a nation every man of which has one large flat foot, with which,
lying upon his back, he covers himself from the sun. In this
respect we have the same advantage over the ancients that men have
over children; and we cannot reflect without amazement on men's
having so much knowledge and learning in other respects, with such
childish understandings in these.
By the labours of these great men in the two last centuries we are
taught to know what we seek, and how it is to be sought. We know,
for example, what parts of the north are yet undiscovered, and also
what parts of the south. We can form a very certain judgment of the
climate of countries undiscovered, and can foresee the advantages
that will result from discoveries before they are made; all which
are prodigious advantages, and ought certainly to animate us in our
searches. I might add to this the great benefits we receive from
our more perfect acquaintance with the properties of the loadstone,
and from the surprising accuracy of astronomical observations, to
which I may add the physical discoveries made of late years in
relation to the figure of the earth, all of which are the result of
the lights which these great men have given us.
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