Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/31

When the observations of past ages were collected, philosophy began to examine their causes. She had numberless facts from which to draw proper inferences, and poetry had taught her the strongest expression to enforce them. The Greeks, (for we know little of the Egyptian learning) now exerted all their happy talents in the investigation of truth, and the production of beauty. Before this, the works of art were remarkable only for the vastness of design, and seemed the productions of giants, not of ordinary men; learning was another name for magic, or to give it its real appellation, imposture. But those improvers saw there was more excellence in captivating the judgment, than in raising a momentary astonishment: in their arts they imitated only such parts of nature, as might please in the representation; in the sciences,they