LEO X.:
OR,
THE AGE OF SCIENTIFIC INVENTION.
PROLOGUE OF MOTTOES.
"The entire succession of men, through the whole course of ages, must be regarded as one man, always living and incessantly learning."—Blaise Pascal.
"It is hard to find a whole age to imitate, or what century to propose for our example. Some have been far more approvable than others: but virtue and vice, panegyrics and satires, scatteringly to be found in all history, sets down not only things laudable but abominable; things which should never have been, or never have been known. So that noble patterns must be fetched here and there from single persons rather than whole nations, and from whole nations rather than any one."—Sir Thomas Brown.
"Always with a change of era, there had to be a change of practice and outward relations brought about, if not peaceably, then by violence, for brought about it had to be; there could be no rest come till then. How many eras and epochs not noted at the moment, which, indeed, is the blessedest condition of epochs, that they come quietly, making no proclamation of themselves, and are only visible long after. A Cromwell Rebellion, a French Revolution, striking on the horologe of time, to tell all mortals what a clock it has become, are too expensive, if one could help it."—Thomas Carlyle.
"Stand up: I myself also am a man."—Acts x. 26.