“I am fully conscious that, not being a literary man , certain presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me; alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks ! do they not know that I might retort as Marius did to the Roman Patricians by saying: That they, who deck themselves out in the labours of others will not allow me my own. They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than by words and experience has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases.
Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy:— on experience, the mistress of their Masters. They go about puffed up and pompous, dressed and decorated with [the fruits], not of their own labours, but of those of others. And they will not allow me my own. They will scorn me as an inventor ; but how much more might they— who are not inventors but vaunters and declaimers of the works of others – be blamed.”
Apparently at one time, it needed to be said. (As for him not being a literary man, he then proceeded to write what would have been one of the first textbooks on optics and perspective had it been widely distributed.)
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