only serv'd to carry them the faster out of the right Way, when they were once going. The Peripateticks themselves do all grant, that the first Rise of Knowledge must be from the Senses, and from an Induction of their Reports: Well then; how could the School-men be proper for such a Business, who were ty'd by their Cloystral Life to such a Strictness of Hours, and had seldom any larger Prospects of Nature, than the Gardens of their Monasteries? It is a common Observation, that Men's Studies are various according to the different Courses of Life, to which they apply themselves; or the Tempers of the Places, wherein they live. They who are bred up in Commonwealths, where the greatest Affairs are manag'd by the Violence of popular Assemblies, and those govern'd by the most plausible Speakers, busy themselves chiefly about Eloquence; they who follow a Court, especially intend the Ornament of Language, and Poetry, and such more delicate Arts, which are usually there in most Request: they who retire from human things, and shut themselves up in a narrow Compass, keeping Company with a very few, and that too in a solemn way, addict themselves, for the most part, to some melancholy Contemplations, or to Devotion, and the Thoughts of another World. That therefore which was fittest for the School-men's way of life, we will allow them: But what sorry Kinds of Philosophy must they needs produce, when it was a part of their Religion, to separate themselves, as much as they could, from the Converse of Mankind? when they were so far from being able to discover the Secrets of Nature, that they had scarce Opportunity, to behold enough of its common Works. If any shall be inclinable to fol-
