62

Logic II 55

at any rate, entitled to an honorable place in the vestibule
of science. A pretty wild play of the imagination is, doubtless it cannot be
doubted an inevitable, of not and probably even a useful, prelude to science proper. For
my part, [their?] if they those men had really had an effective rage to
learn the very truth, and did what they did as the best way
they knew, or could know, to find it out, I could not bring
myself to deny them the title. The difficulty is that one of the
things that coheres to that undeveloped state of intelligence
is precisely a very imperfect and impure thirst for truth. Paracelsus
and the alchemists were rank charlatans seeking for
gold rather than for truth. The metaphysicians were not only pedants
and pretenders, but they were trying to establish foregone conclusions.
These are the traits which deprive those men of the
title scientist, although we ought to entertain a high respect
for them as mortals go; because they could no more escape
the corruptions of their aims than they could the deficiencies
of their [?] knowledge. Science consists in actually drawing