Digital Donne: the Online Variorum
The 1654 Prose Letters Letter 6, cont. (p.13) |
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so Philosophers, and so all sects of Chri- stians, after long disputations and contro- versies, have allowed many things for po- sitive and dogmaticall truths which are not worthy of that dignity; And so many doctrines have grown to be the ordinary diet and food of our spirits, and have place in the pap of Catechismes, which were ad- mitted but as Physick in that present di- stemper, or accepted in a lazie weariness, when men, so they might have something to relie upon, and to excuse themselves from more painfull inquisition, never exa- mined what that was. To which indisposi- tion of ours, the Casuists are so indulgent, as that they allow a conscience to adhere to any probable opinion against a more pro- bable, and do never binde him to seek out which is the more probable, but give him leave to dissemble it and to depart from it, if by mischance he come to know it. This, as it appears in all sciences, so most manifestly in Physick, which for a long time considering nothing, but plain curing [CW: and] |
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