Excerpt from Divine Dialogues: Together With the Apology of Socrates

What is every day seen to befal the noblest houses, whose great names are usurped by obscure families, has been the fate of philosophy. A great number of arts, which indeed may be of use in their places, but are worthy only to be the slaves of that science which can alone render our lives equally good and happy, have seized on this magnificient name, and made it contemptible in the eyes men. We have no idea of a true philosopher, since this august title is lavishly bestowed on a sort of curious experimentalists, who, chained down to the earth, spend the whole of their lives in making experiments on the weight of the air, and the virtues of the loadstone. This name has been still more degraded, in being given to those, whose insatiable avarice binds them day and night to a furnace; as if gold, the greatest quantity of which is not comparable to the least virtue, were the end of philosophy. In fine, men are not content with having given it such blemishes as these, but have also rendered the name odious, in throwing it away on those libertines, who, by a pretended force d"esprit, which at bottom is no better than weakness and ignorance, live rather like beasts than men. Is it then to be wondered at, that philosophy is mistaken and neglected, and that men no longer pay her that respect and veneration, which she formerly excited in their minds? Ashamed of being confounded with the daughters of the earth, she is reascended to heaven, from whence Socrates brought her.

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