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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: so, when he sees in how wretched a manner that noble art is
treated by a few mean illiterate traders between us and the
stars; who import a yearly stock of nonsense, lyes, folly, and
impertinence, which they offer to the world as genuine from the
planets, tho' they descend from no greater a height than their
own brains.
I intend in a short time to publish a large and rational defence
of this art, and therefore shall say no more in its justification
at present, than that it hath been in all ages defended by many
learned men, and among the rest by Socrates himself, whom I look
upon as undoubtedly the wisest of uninspir'd mortals: To which if
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