The PREFACE.

Cloisters, ingenious and inquisitive Terfons, Were oblig’d to search those Via*ces for the SubjeB of all curious ffinowledge, as well of Antiquity as ofNature, and there exercise themselves in the Art of Reasoning uud Inform-ing their Judgment. Hut this Jrt, which, in its oibn Nature, is equillyproper for all the Sciences, not having been us’d, during so long a time, hjany but Divines, whose Sentiments are entirely captivated and subjeBed toancient Decisions, had so lost the Habit of using that Liberty, which is Ne-cessary in curious Researches, that several Ages were past before we were et-hic to reason in humane Sciences, otherwise than is done in Divinity. Andthis was the Reason why formerly the Learned had nO Other Aim in theirStudies, than to find out the Opinion of the Ancients, accounting it fargreater Honour to have found the true Sence of a Text of Aristotle, thanto have discoVer d the Truth of the Thing treated of in that Text.

This Spirit of Submission in the Manner of learning and treating of theSilences and Arts, is so nurs’d up, and fortified, by the natural Docility ofMen of Letters, that dis Very difficult to lay it aside 3 and we can hardlyaccustom ourselves to make that Distinction, which there is, between the Re-fpeB due to Things [acred, and to those that are not so 3 which we may bepermitted to examine, criticise upon, and censure with modesty, when weendeavour to find out the Truth 3 and in ivhich, we contemplate no Mysteries j'of like Nature with those that Religion proposes to us, and which we wondernot, in the least, to find incomprehensible.

As ArchiteBure, as well as Tainting and Sculpture, has been often hand-led by Men of Letters, so it has been govern d by this Humour more thanthe other Arts 3 they have taken all their Arguments from Authority , imagin-ing that the Authors of the admirable Works of Antiquity, did nothing butfor good Reasons, though we cannot find them out.

Hut those who will not allow that the Reasons which cause those beautifulWorks to be admird, are incomprehensible, after having exantind all thatbelongs to this SubjeB , and been instruBed by the most able Ter sons 3 willle convincd, if they consult good Sense, that ’tis no great Absurdity to thinlythat those Things , for which no Reason can be found, are really without anythat contributes to their Heauty, and that they have no other Foundation thanChance, and the Humour of the Workynen , who fought for no Reason to