A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the…A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the…

Now the Abuses of Principles, is either by Falsifying and casting absurd Glosses upon them within their own limits; as when Philosophical Errors are falsely grounded upon Philosophical Axioms, which is Error Consequentia, or Illationis, an Error in the Consequence of one from the other: or else by transferring the Truth of them beyond their own bounds, into the Territories (as I may so speak) of another Science, making them to encroach and to uphold Conclusions contrary to the nature of their Subject; which is Error Dependentia, or Subordinationis, an Error in the Dependence of one on the other. For the former, it hath been always either the subtlety or modesty of error to shroud it self under truth; & that it might make its fancies the more plausible, to fasten them upon undeniable grounds, & by a ⟨p. 486⟩strange kind of Chemistry, to extract darkness out of light. ^†Fraus sibi ex parvis, (said Fabius Maximus in Livy upon another occasion.) I will alter it thus, Error sibi ex principlijs fidem prastruit, ut cum magnâ mercede fallat. ^*Unreasonable and groundless fancies always shelter themselves under a plausible pretence of truth and ostentation of Reason. ^†As Praxiteles the Painter drew the Picture of Venus by the face of his Minion Cratina, that so by an honourable pretext he might procure Adoration to a Harlot. ^*Thus as Plat• is said, when he inveighed chiefly against Orators, most of all to have played the Orator (making a Sword of eloquence to wound it self:) So they on the contrary, never more wrong Knowledge, than when they promise to promote it most. It was the custom of that Scipio, honoured afterward by the name of his Punic Conquest, always before he set upon any business, as Livy reports of him) to enter the Capitol alone, pretending thereby a consultation with the gods about the justness, issue, and success of his intended designs; and then, Apud multitudinem, plerumque ⁵velut meant divinitus monitâ agebat: He bore the multitude in hand, that whatsoever exploits he persuaded them to attempt, had all the Approbation and Unerring Judgement of their Deities.