But, notwithstanding the above, and a few other splendid conceptions which shine through the obscurity of the ancient physics, the system, taken on the whole, was full of error and inconsistency. Truth and falsehood met almost on terms of equality ; the for mer separated from its root, experience, found no preference above the latter ; to the lat ter, in fact, it was generally forced to give way, and the dominion of error was finally es tablished.
One ought to listen, therefore, with caution to the encomiums sometimes bestowed on the philosophy of those early ages. If these encomiums respected only the talents, the genius, the taste of the great masters of antiquity, we would subscribe to them without any apprehension of going beyond the truth. But if they extend to the methods of phi losophizing, and the discoveries actually made, we must be excused for entering our dissent, and exchanging the language of panegyric for that of apology. The infancy of science could not be the time when its attainments were the highest ; and, before we suffer our selves to be guided by the veneration of antiquity, we ought to consider in what real anti quity consists. With regard to the progress of knowledge and improvement, " we are more ancient than those who went before us."' The human race has now more experi ence than in the generations that are past, and of course may be expected to have made higher attainments in science and philosophy. Compared with natural philosophy, as it
now exists, the ancient physics are rude and imperfect.• The speculations contained in them are vague and unsatisfactory, and of little value, but as they elucidate the history of the errors and illusions to which the human mind is subject. Science was not merely sta tionary, but often retrograde ; the earliest opinions were frequently the best ; and the rea sonings of Democritus and Anaxagoras were in many instances more solid than those of Plato and Aristotle. Extreme credulity disgraced the speculations of men who, however ingenious, were little acquainted with the laws of nature, and unprovided with the great criterion by which the evidence of testimony can alone be examined. Though observations were sometimes made, experiments were never instituted ; and philosophers, who were little attentive to the facts which spontaneously offered, did not seek to increase their num ber by artificial combinations. Experience, in those ages, was a light which darted a few tremulous and uncertain rays on some small portions of the field of science, but men had not acquired the power over that light which now enables them to concentrate its beams, and to fix them steadily on whatever object they wish to examine. This power is what dis