As for the doubts or non liquets general or in total, I
understand those differences of opinions touching the principles of
nature, and the fundamental points of the same, which have caused
the diversity of sects, schools, and philosophies, as that of
Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus, Parmenides, and the rest. For
although Aristotle, as though he had been of the race of the
Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first thing he did
he killed all his brethren; yet to those that seek truth and not
magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great profit, to see
before them the several opinions touching the foundations of nature.
Not for any exact truth that can be expected in those theories; for
as the same phenomena in astronomy are satisfied by this received
astronomy of the diurnal motion, and the proper motions of the
planets, with their eccentrics and epicycles, and likewise by the
theory of Copernicus, who supposed the earth to move, and the
calculations are indifferently agreeable to both, so the ordinary
face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several
theories and philosophies; whereas to find the real truth requireth
another manner of severity and attention.
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