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Epicurus modestly hoped that one time or other a
certain fortuitous concourse of all men's opinions, after perpetual
jostlings, the sharp with the smooth, the light and the heavy, the
round and the square, would, by certain clinamina, unite in the
notions of atoms and void, as these did in the originals of all
things. Cartesius reckoned to see before he died the sentiments of
all philosophers, like so many lesser stars in his romantic system,
rapt and drawn within his own vortex. Now I would gladly be
informed how it is possible to account for such imaginations as
these in particular men, without recourse to my phenomenon of
vapours ascending from the lower faculties to overshadow the brain,
and there distilling into conceptions, for which the narrowness of
our mother-tongue has not yet assigned any other name beside that of
madness or frenzy. Let us therefore now conjecture how it comes to
pass that none of these great prescribers do ever fail providing
themselves and their notions with a number of implicit disciples,
and I think the reason is easy to be assigned, for there is a
peculiar string in the harmony of human understanding, which in
several individuals is exactly of the same tuning. This, if you can
dexterously screw up to its right key, and then strike gently upon
it whenever you have the good fortune to light among those of the
same pitch, they will by a secret necessary sympathy strike exactly
at the same time. And in this one circumstance lies all the skill
or luck of the matter; for, if you chance to jar the string among
those who are either above or below your own height, instead of
subscribing to your doctrine, they will tie you fast, call you mad,
and feed you with bread and water. It is therefore a point of the
nicest conduct to distinguish and adapt this noble talent with
respect to the differences of persons and of times. Cicero
understood this very well, when, writing to a friend in England,
with a caution, among other matters, to beware of being cheated by
our hackney-coachmen (who, it seems, in those days were as arrant
rascals as they are now), has these remarkable words, Est quod
gaudeas te in ista loca venisse, ubi aliquid sapere viderere {129}.
For, to speak a bold truth, it is a fatal miscarriage so ill to
order affairs as to pass for a fool in one company, when in another
you might be treated as a philosopher; which I desire some certain
gentlemen of my acquaintance to lay up in their hearts as a very
seasonable innuendo.
This, indeed, was the fatal mistake of that worthy gentleman, my
most ingenious friend Mr. Wotton, a person in appearance ordained
for great designs as well as performances, whether you will consider
his notions or his looks. Surely no man ever advanced into the
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