A10663:960
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…
A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the several dignities and corruptions thereunto belonging. By Edward Reynolds, late preacher to the honourable society of Lincoln's Inn: and now rector of the Church of Braunston in Northamptonshire.A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the severall dignities and corruptions thereunto belonging. By Edvvard Reynoldes, late preacher to the honorable society of Lincoln's Inne: and now rector of the Church of Braunston in Northamptonshire.
London: printed by R. Hearne and John Norton for Robert Bostock, 1640
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Another prejudice to this Faculty, is that which I observed before on another Occasion, an Over-Reverend Opinion of those who have gone before us. For when men shall so magnify the Gifts of others, that they sleight and neglect their own; when out of a prejudicate Conceit that the Ancients have sufficiently perfected the ⟨p. 502⟩Body of more serious Learnings, they shall exercise their Wits (capable of greater employments) in degenerate and unuseful Studies; Knowledge must needs be hindered from attaining that Maturity, to which by their own Inventions it might be raised. Thus as it falls out amongst men of thriftless Minds in their Fortunes: Divitiarum abundantia inter Causal paupertat is est. Their profuseness out of their present store, with a negligence to recover and new make their Estates, draws them quickly beyond their Fortunes▪ or as it was in the like case amongst the Romans in those times of Public Luxury, and Effeminateness, the valour of their Ancestors procuring unto them large wealth, and securing them from foreign hostility, did also by the means of that Wealth and Ease soften and melt their valour, so that their Weakness was principally occasioned by the invincible spirit of their Predecessors: So it is in the matter of Learning, when we spend our time only in the Legacies that our Fathers have left us, and never seek to improve it by our own Inventions, the Large measures of Knowledge which we receive from them, is by our preposterous use made an occasion of a Large measure of Ignorance in other inquiries, where in their Labours offer greater Assistance, than discouragement. There was not I persuade my self amongst the Ancients themselves, a greater means of disclosing so large a measure of Truth, than the Freedom of their own Opinions. For notwithstanding this Liberty was often the occasion of ⟨p. 503⟩many prodigious Births; yet this disadvantage was coun•vailed with many fruitful and goodly iss•; all which might haply have been undiscovered, had men laboured only in Traditions, and contented themselves with Learning upon Trust. And those more Errors being still examined, were less pernicious than fewer believed. And even of them I make no question but there hath been good use made by those that have enquired into Truth.