as creating.

This was a new characteristic of investigation; it led him on to
pursue his profounder inquiries beyond the clouds of antiquity; for
what he could not _discover_, he CONJECTURED and ASSERTED. Objects,
which in the hands of other men were merely matters resting on
authentic researches, now received the stamp and lustre of original
invention. Nothing was to be seen in the state in which others had
viewed it; the hardiest paradoxes served his purpose best, and
this licentious principle produced unlooked-for discoveries. He
humoured his taste, always wild and unchastised, in search of the
monstrous and the extravagant; and, being a wit, he delighted in
finding resemblances in objects which to more regulated minds had no
similarity whatever. _Wit_ may exercise its ingenuity as much in
combining _things_ unconnected with each other, as in its odd
assemblage of _ideas_; and Warburton, as a literary antiquary,
proved to be as witty in his combinations as BUTLER and CONGREVE
in their comic images. As this principle took full possession of
the mind of this man of genius, the practice became so familiar,
that it is possible he might at times have been credulous enough
to have confided in his own reveries. As he forcibly expressed
himself on one of his adversaries, Dr. STEBBING, "Thus it is to
have to do with a head whose _sense is all run to system_." "His
Academic Wit" now sported amid whimsical theories, pursued bold
but inconclusive arguments, marked out subtile distinctions, and
discovered incongruous resemblances; but they were maintained by an
imposing air of conviction, furnished with the most prodigal
erudition, and they struck out many ingenious combinations. The
importance or the curiosity of the topics awed or delighted his
readers; the principle, however licentious, by the surprise it
raised, seduced the lovers of novelties. Father HARDOUIN had
studied as hard as Warburton, rose as early, and retired to rest
as late, and the obliquity of his intellect resembled that of
Warburton--but he was a far inferior genius; he only discovered
that the classical works of antiquity, the finest compositions
of the human mind, in ages of its utmost refinement, had been
composed by the droning monks of the middle ages; a discovery which
only surprised by its tasteless absurdity--but the absurdities
of Warburton had more dignity, were more delightful, and more
dangerous: they existed, as it were, in a state of illusion,