PHILONOUS. Good morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find you abroad soearly.
HYLAS. It is indeed something unusual; but my thoughts were so taken upwith a subject I was discoursing of last night, that finding I could notsleep, I resolved to rise and take a turn in the garden.
PHIL. It happened well, to let you see what innocent and agreeablepleasures you lose every morning. Can there be a pleasanter time of theday, or a more delightful season of the year? That purple sky, those wildbut sweet notes of birds, the fragrant bloom upon the trees and flowers,the gentle influence of the rising sun, these and a thousand namelessbeauties of nature inspire the soul with secret transports; its facultiestoo being at this time fresh and lively, are fit for those meditations,which the solitude of a garden and tranquillity of the morning naturallydispose us to. But I am afraid I interrupt your thoughts: for you seemedvery intent on something.
HYL. It is true, I was, and shall be obliged to you if you will permitme to go on in the same vein; not that I would by any means deprivemyself of your company, for my thoughts always flow more easily inconversation with a friend, than when I am alone: but my request is, thatyou would suffer me to impart my reflexions to you.
PHIL. With all my heart, it is what I should have requested myself ifyou had not prevented me.
HYL. I was considering the odd fate of those men who have in all ages,through an affectation of being distinguished from the vulgar, or someunaccountable turn of thought, pretended either to believe nothing atall, or to believe the most extravagant things in the world. This howevermight be borne, if their paradoxes and scepticism did not draw after themsome consequences of general disadvantage to mankind. But the mischieflieth here; that when men of less leisure see them who are supposedto have spent their whole time in the pursuits of knowledge professing anentire ignorance of all things, or advancing such notions as arerepugnant to plain and commonly received principles, they will be temptedto entertain suspicions concerning the most important truths, which theyhad hitherto held sacred and unquestionable.
PHIL. I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affecteddoubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceits of others. I ameven so far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have quittedseveral of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgaropinions. And I give it you on my word; since this revolt frommetaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, Ifind my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easilycomprehend a great many things which before were all mystery and riddle.
HYL. I am glad to find there was nothing in the accounts I heard of you.
PHIL. Pray, what were those?
HYL.