For after the sciences had been in several parts perhaps cultivated and handled diligently, there has risen up some man of bold disposition, and famous for methods and short ways which people like, who has in appearance reduced them to an art, while he has in fact only spoiled all that the others had done.

And yet this is what posterity like, because it makes the work short and easy, and saves further inquiry, of which they are weary and impatient.

And if any one take this general acquiescence and consent for an argument of weight, as being the judgment of Time, let me tell him that the reasoning on which he relies is most fallacious and weak.

For, first, we are far from knowing all that in the matter of sciences and arts has in various ages and places been brought to light and published; much less, all that has been by private persons secretly attempted and stirred, so neither the births nor the miscarriages of Time are entered in our records.

Nor, secondly, is the consent itself and the time it has continued a consideration of much worth.