The Value of Early Philosophers

I departed highly pleased with the professor and his lecture, and paid him a visit

the same evening. His manners in private were even more mild and attractive than in public; for there

was a certain dignity in his mien during his lecture, which in his own house was replaced

by the greatest affability and kindness. He heard with attention my little narration concerning my studies,

and smiled at the names of Cornelius Agrippa, and Paracelsus, but without the

contempt that M. Krempe had exhibited. He said, that “these were men to whose indefatigable

zeal modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of their knowledge. They had left to

us, as an easier task, to give new names, and arrange in connected classifications,