s the parent of the most pure and ardent
piety; the genuine progeny of the other are impiety and atheism. And, in
fine, the one confers on its votary the most sincere, permanent, and
exalted delight; the other continual disappointment, and unceasing
molestation.

-----------------
[14] That this must be the tendency of experiment, when prosecuted as the
criterion of truth, is evident from what Bacon, the prince of modern
philosophy, says in the 104th Aphorism of his Novum Organum, that
"baseless fabric of a vision." For he there sagely observes that wings
are not to be added to the human intellect, but rather lead and weights;
that all its leaps and flights may be restrained. That this is not yet
done, but that when it is we may entertain better hopes respecting the
sciences. "Itaque hominum intellectui non plumae addendae, sed plumbum
potius, et pondera; ut cohibeant omnem saltum et volatum. Atque hoc adhuc
factum non est; quum vero factum fuerit, melius de scientiis sperare
licebit." A considerable portion of lead must certainly have been added
to the intellect of Bacon when he wrote this Aphorism.
-----------------

If such then are the consequences, such the tendencies of experimental
inquiries, when prosecuted as the criterion of truth, and daily
experience[15] unhappily shows that they are, there can be no other remedy
for this enormous evil than the intellectual philosophy of Plato. So
obviously excellent indeed is the tendency of this philosophy, that its
author, for a period of more than two thousand years, has been universally
celebrated by the epithet of divine. Such too is its preeminence, that it
may be shown, without much difficulty, that the greatest men of antiquity,
from the time in which its salutary light first blessed the human race,
have been more or less imbued with its sacred principles, have been more or
less the votaries of its divine truths. Thus, to mention a few from among a
countless multitude. In the catalogue of those endued with sovereign power,
it had for its votaries Dion of Siracusian, Julian the Roman, and Chosroes
the Persian, emperor; among the leaders of armies, it had Chabrias and
Phocion, those brave generals of the Athenians; among mathematicians, those
leading stars of science, Eudoxus, Archimedes[16] and Euclid; among
biographers, the inimitable Plutarch; among physicians, the admirable
Galen; among rhetoricians, those unrivaled orators Demosthenes and Cicero;
among critics,