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The PRESENT STATE
fciences which in themselves are easy of access, affright the learner with the severity of their appearance. He sees them surrounded with speculation and subtilty, placed there by their professors as if with a view of deterring his approach. From hence it happens, that the generality of readers fly from the scholar to the compiler, who offers them a more safe and speedy conveyance.
From this fault also arises that mutual contempt between the scholar and the man of the world, of which every day's experience furnisheth instances.
The man of taste, however, stands neuter in this controversy, he seems placed in a middle station, between the world and the cell, between learning and commonsense.
