Joseph Glanvill
Joseph Glanvill
Joseph Glanvillwas an English writer, philosopher, and clergyman. Not himself a scientist, he has been called "the most skillful apologist of the virtuosi", or in other words the leading propagandist for the approach of the English natural philosophers of the later 17th century. In 1661 he predicted...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
discouraging assurance raises
Some pretences daunt and discourage us, while others raise us to a brisk assurance.
women garden deceit
The woman in us still prosecutes a deceit like that begun in the garden.
spring knowledge self
We cannot conceive how the Foetus is form'd in the Womb, nor as much as how a Plant springs from the Earth we tread on ... And if we are ignorant of the most obvious things about us, and the most considerable within our selves, 'tis then no wonder that we know not the constitution and powers of the creatures, to whom we are such strangers.
doubt needs certainty
And for mathematical science, he that doubts their certainty hath need of a dose of hellebore.
judging may impossible
It may not be impossible, but that our Faculties may be so construed, as always to deceive us in the things we judge most certain and assured.
inquiry matter belief
That though we are certain of many things, yet that Certainty is no absolute Infallibility, there still remains the possibility of our being mistaken in all matters of humane Belief and Inquiry.
exercise belief reason
The belief of our Reason is an Exercise of Faith, and Faith is an Act of Reason.
christian charity unions
The union of a sect within itself is a pitiful charity; it's no concord of Christians, but a conspiracy against Christ; and they that love one another for their opinionative concurrence, love for their own sakes, not their Lord's.
distance mean may
To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic contrivances may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence.
justice requirements
Justice is but the distributing to everything according to the requirements of its nature.
calling world truth-is
We have a mistaken notion of antiquity, calling that so which in truth is the world's nonage.
passion needs noise
The precipitancy of disputation, and the stir and noise of passions that usually attend it, must needs be prejudicial to verity.
understanding faculty wells
The understanding also hath its idiosyncrasies as well as other faculties.
style acceptable
There is nothing in words and styles out suitableness that makes them acceptable and effective.