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THE SECOND BOOKE 323
hath only served to kill people. I thinke he will easily
verify it. But I suppose it were no great wisedome to
hazard my life upon the triall of his new-fangled experience.
'We must not beleeve all men,' saith the
precept, ' since every man may say all things.' It is
not long since that one of these professours of novelties
and physicall reformations told me that all our forefathers
had notoriously abused themselves in the nature
and motions of the winds, which, if I should listen unto
him, he would manifestly make me perceive. After 1
had with some patience given attendance to his arguments,
which were indeed full of likelyhood, I demanded
of him whether they who had sailed according to
Theophrastus his lawes, went westward when they bent
their course eastward ? Or whether they sailed sideling
or backward ? ' It is fortune,' answered he, ' but so
it is, they tooke their marke amisse:' To whom I
then replied that I would rather follow the effects than
his reason. They are things that often shock together:
and it hath beene told mee that in geometry (which
supposeth to have gained the high point of certainty
amongst all sciences) there are found unavoidable
demonstrations, and which subvert the truth of all
experience: as James Peletier told me in mine owne
house, that he had found out two lines bending their
course one towards another, as if they would meet and
joyne together; neverthelesse he affirmed that, even
unto infinity, they could never come to touch one
another. And the Pyrrhonians use their arguments,
and reason but to destroy the apparance of experience:
and it is a wonder to see how far the suppleuesso of
our reason hath in this design followed them to resist
the evidence of effects: for they affirme that we move
not, that we speake not, that there is no weight, nor
heat, with the same force of arguing that we averre
the most likeliest things. Ptolomey, who was an excellent
man, had established the bounds of the world;
all ancient philosophers have thought they had a perfect
measure thereof, except it were certaine scattered
ilands which might escape their knowledge: it had