Important Quotations Explained
The only course remaining was to try the thing again from the start with better means, and make a general Renewal of the sciences and arts and of all human learning, beginning from correct foundations. This might seem, on approach, to be something illimitably vast and beyond mortal strength, and yet in the treatment, it will be found to be sane and sensible, more so than what has been done in the past. For one can see an end to it. Whereas in what is currently done in the sciences, there is a kind of giddiness, a perpetual agitation and a going in a circle.
Here we give leave and permission to anyone who is better suited to mechanical things, and better trained, and ingenious in deriving results from mere acquaintance with experiments, to undertake the difficult task of gathering a good crop from our history and from our tables as he passes by, taking an interest payment for the time being until the capital can be had.
Neither the bare hand nor the unaided intellect has much power; the work is done by tools and assistance, and the intellect needs them as much as the hand. As the hand's tools either prompt or guide its motions, so the mind's tools either prompt or warn the intellect.
The illusions and false notions which have got a hold on men's intellects in the past and are now profoundly rooted in them, not only block their minds so that it is difficult for truth to gain access, but even when access has been granted and allowed, they will once again, in the very renewal of the sciences, offer resistance and do mischief unless men are forewarned and arm themselves against them as much as possible.
