CHAPTER II.

That in the sensible World there is nothing so hidden, for which a probable cause at least cannot be assigned; where the diverse opinions and views of Philosophers concerning the abstruse operations of Nature are adduced.

So struck and terrified are some by the insolence of recondite things that, overcome by a certain Socratic pusillanimity, they assert that nothing can be known, and that the true and genuine cause of any thing cannot be assigned; whom indeed I judge the less to be tolerated by others, the more they are hostile to true philosophy. It can scarcely be expressed how much the philosophers of such small mind stir my bile, who, when they discover certain effects degenerate from the common sense of men, suddenly fleeing to that shameful asylum of ignorance, reiterate, blathering, that it is an occult quality, and that therefore no other genuine cause should be sought; that here Nature has prescribed limits to human ingenuity; that it is in vain to inquire into what Nature has willed to be hidden from us; that nothing can be known which does not proceed from primary qualities, and six hundred other vain and futile things. With this cloak of ignorance, besides showing that they have made scant progress in Philosophy, [they also suppress] the high and ge-