on in
works compos'd of divers peeces, and made by the hands of severall
masters, as in those that were wrought by one only: So we may observe
that those buildings which were undertaken and finished by one onely,
are commonly fairer and better ordered then those which divers have
laboured to patch up, making use of old wals, which were built for other
purposes; So those ancient Cities which of boroughs, became in a
succession of time great Towns, are commonly so ill girt in comparison
of other regular Places, which were design'd on a flatt according to the
fancy of an Engeneer; and although considering their buildings
severally, we often find as much or more art, then in those of other
places; Yet to see how they are rank'd here a great one, there a little
one, and how they make the streets crooked and uneven, One would say,
That it was rather Fortune, then the will of Men indued with reason,
that had so disposed them. And if we consider, that there hath always
been certain Officers, whose charge it was, to take care of private
buildings, to make them serve for the publique ornament; We may well
perceive, that it's very difficult, working on the works of others, to
make things compleat. So also did I imagine, that those people who
formerly had been half wilde, and civiliz'd but by degrees, made their
laws but according to the incommodities which their crimes and their
quarrels constrain'd them to, could not be so wel pollic'd, as those who
from the beginning of their association, observ'd the constitutions of
some prudent Legislator. As it is very certain, that the state of the
true Religion, whose Ordinances God alone hath made, must be
incomparably better regulated then all others. And to speak of humane
things, I beleeve that if _Sparta_ hath formerly been most flourishing,
it was not by reason of the goodness of every of their laws in
particular, many of them being very strange, and even contrary to good
manners, but because they were invented by one only, They all tended to
One End. And so I thought the sciences in Books, at least those whose
reasons are but probable, and which have no demonstrations, having been
compos'd of, and by little and little enlarg'd with, the opinions of
divers persons, come not so near the Truth, as those simple reasonings
which an understanding Man can naturally make, touching those things
which occurr. And I thought besides also, That since we have all been
children, before we were Men;