irreverent of something immediately connected with his welfare; his
credulity suffers him to believe the interested advice, and spurns at
those who wish to show him the danger of the road he is travelling.

This is the reason why nations linger on in the most shameful lethargy,
suffering under abuses handed down from century to century, trembling at
the very idea of that which alone can repair their calamities.

It is for want of energy, for want of consulting experience, that
medicine, natural philosophy, agriculture, painting, in fact, all the
useful sciences, have so long remained under the fetters of authority,
have progressed so little: those who profess these sciences, prefer
treading the beaten paths, however imperfect, rather than strike out new
ones,--they prefer the phrensy of their imagination, their voluntary
conjectures, to that laboured experience which alone can extract her
secrets from Nature.

Man, in short, whether from sloth or from terror, having abnegated the
evidence of his senses, has been guided in all his actions, in all his
enterprizes, by imagination, by enthusiasm, by habit, by preconceived
opinions, but above all, by the influence of authority, which knew well
how to deceive him, to turn his ignorance to esteem, his sloth to
advantage. Thus imaginary, unsubstantial systems, have supplied the
place of experience--of mature reflection--of reason. Man, petrified
with his fears, intoxicated with the marvellous, stupified with sloth,
surrendered his experience: guided by his credulity, he was unable to
fall back upon it; he became consequently inexperienced; from thence he
gave birth to the most ridiculous opinions, or else adopted all those
vague chimeras, all those idle notions offered to him by men whose
interest it was to continue him in that lamentable state of ignorance.