470d Blount, Sir Thomas Pope. (1649-1697) Essays on several subjects.

London: Printed for Richard Bently, in Russel-street
in Convent-Garden, 1692

***SOLD***

Octavo, 7.75 x 6.2 in. Re-issue of the 1691 sheets with a new title page. This copy is bound in modern speckled calf. It is in very good condition.

“It is worthy of note that, universal scholar as he was, no man despised mere learning more heartily. ‘There is not,’ he says, ‘a simpler animal and a more superfluous member of the state than a mere scholar.’” This prejudice against pedantry and Blount’s thoughts on Baconian manner, history, human knowledge, and the passions are reflected in this set of seven widely successful essays. Within the forum of the text, Blount “has an opportunity of displaying his individuality as a writer […] the most prominent characteristic of the essays is their strong sceptical spirit, using these terms in the best sense, their freedom from conventionality, and the air of comfortable cynicism that pervades them.” (DNB)

Blount’s incendiary perspective on learning and the limits of man’s rationality has formed the basis of dicussions and meditations that have been pursued by Benjamin Franklin and other analysts of the democratic system. For example, the subject of the first essay is: That interest governs the world: and that Popery is nothing but Priest-craft, or an invention of the priests to get money. Blount had a position on the celibacy of clergy members worthy of discussion: “as things stood under the reign of Celibacy, if priests were not allow’d the use of common women they would (in several places) fall upon the wives and daughters of their parishioners […] that so great wickedness should ever be practiced amongst such as serve at the Altar, is indeed a thing much to be lamented; but that ever a Christian Church shold allow and approve of such practices, is a matter of astonishment. […] That great Angelical Doctor of the Church of Rome, Thomas Aquinas (whether from his own complexion, or no, I know not) seems to be so great a favourer of this vice, that he argues for it in a pretty odd sort of a manner […] ‘A whore in the world is as the pump in a ship, or a privy in a palace: take these away, and all will be filled with stench and annoyance.’”

The second essay discusses the ‘great mischief and prejudice of learning.’ Blount argues that a wise man should never be ranked below a ‘man of learning’ because formal eduction does not assure, and may even preclude wisdom, whereas wisdom is often found in the ‘uneducated.’ Essays three and four concern education and use of classical authors, respectively. Blount also compares modern folk to the ancients, he explores the uncertainty of human knowledge. “How unreasonable then are those men, who are so positive and dogmatical in their own opinions, that rather than admit of the least contradiction, chuse to make the whole world an Aceldama and a Babel? […] Truth is a thing not certainly known; nay possibly, the all-wise God thinks it too dazling a thing for the eyes of us poor mortals, and therefore reserves it for our glorified faculties.”

Wing B-3349.