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which had a kind of primogeniture with them severally. So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus, our countryman, hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a loadstone. So Cicero, when, reciting the several opinions 5 of the nature of the soul, he found a musician that held the soul was but a harmony, saith pleasantly, He was faithful to his profession. But of these conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely, when he saith, They who take account of but few things, find it easy to pass 10 judgment.?

Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the 15 one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable, the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with 20 doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremptory, and not ingenuous and faithful; in a sort as may be soonest believed, and not easiliest 25 examined. It is true that in compendious treatises for practice that form is not to be disallowed. But in the true handling of knowledge, men ought not to fall either, on the one side, into the vein of Velleius the Epicurean, who feared nothing so much as the seeming to be in doubt 30 about anything,3 nor on the other side into Socrates his

1 Hic ab arte sua non recessit, etc.

2 Qui respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant.

3 Nil tam metuens, quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur.

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PROFESSORS SHOULD ADD TO SCIENCE.

ironical doubting of all things; but to propound things sincerely, with more or less asseveration, as they stand in a man's own judgment proved more or less.

Other errors there are in the scope that men propound 5 to themselves, whereunto they bend their endeavors; for whereas the more constant and devote kind of professors of any science ought to propound to themselves to make some additions to their science, they convert their labors to aspire to certain second prizes, as to be a profound interpreter or commenter, to be a sharp champion or defender, to be a methodical compounder or abridger; and so the patrimony of knowledge cometh to be sometimes improved, but seldom augmented.

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But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or 15 misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge. For men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and 20 sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men. As if there were sought in knowledge a couch, whereupon to rest a search25 ing and restless spirit; or a terrace, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich store30 house, for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate. But this is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the 35 two highest planets, Saturn the planet of rest and con

JOIN CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION.

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templation, and Jupiter the planet of civil society and action. Howbeit, do not mean, when I speak of use and action, that end before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge to lucre and profession, for I am not ignorant how much that diverteth and interrupteth the prose- s cution and advancement of knowledge; like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, the race is hindered:

She leaves her course, and lifts the rolling gold.1

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Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to 10 call philosophy down from heaven to converse upon the earth that is, to leave natural philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge only to manners and policy. But as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and benefit of man, so the end ought to be, from 15 both philosophies to separate and reject vain speculations and whatsoever is empty and void, and to preserve and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful; that knowledge may not be as a courtesan, for pleasure and vanity only, or as a bond-woman, to acquire and gain to her master's 20 use, but as a spouse, for generation, fruit, and comfort.

Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of dissection, those peccant humors-the principal of themwhich hath not only given impediment to the proficience of learning, but have given also occasion to the traduce- 25 ment thereof; wherein if I have been too plain, it must be remembered, Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. This, I think, I have gained, that I ought to be the better believed in that which I shall say pertaining to commendation, because I have proceeded so freely in that which concerneth cen

1 Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.

2 Fidelia vulnera amantis, sed dolosa oscula malignantis.

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44 GOD'S WISDOM UNDERIVED KNOWLEDGE.

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sure.

And yet I have no purpose to enter into a laudative of learning, or to make a hymn to the Muses, though I am of opinion that it is long since their rites were duly celebrated; but my intent is, without varnish or amplifi5 cation justly to weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with other things, and to take the true value thereof by testimonies and arguments divine and human.

First therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the arch-type or first platform, which is in the attributes 10 and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man and may be observed with sobriety; wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning, for all learning is knowledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original; and therefore we must look for it by another name, that of wisdom or sapience, as the Scriptures call it.

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It is so then, that in the work of the creation we see a double emanation of virtue from God: the one referring more properly to power, the other to wisdom; the one expressed in making the subsistence of the matter, and 20 the other in disposing the beauty of the form. This being supposed, it is to be observed that, for anything which appeareth in the history of the creation, the confused mass and matter of heaven and earth was made in a moment; and the order and disposition of that chaos 25 or mass was the work of six days. Such a note of difference it pleased God to put upon the works of power and the works of wisdom. Wherewith concurreth that in the former it is not set down that God said, 'Let there be heaven and earth,' as it is set down of the works following, 30 but actually that God made heaven and earth; the one carrying the style of a manufacture, and the other of a law, decree, or counsel.

To proceed to that which is next in order, from God to spirits. We find, as far as credit is to be given to the 35 celestial hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius the senator

of Athens, the first place or degree is given to the angels of love, which are termed seraphim, the second to the angels of light, which are termed cherubim, and the third and so following places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all angels of power and ministry; 5 so as the angels of knowledge and illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.

To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible and material forms, we read the first form that was created was light, which hath a relation and corre- 10 spondence in nature and corporal things to knowledge in spirits and incorporal things.

So in the distribution of days, we see the day wherein God did rest and contemplate his own works was blessed above all the days wherein he did effect and accomplish 15 them.

After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us that man was placed in the garden to work therein; which work, so appointed to him, could be no other than work of contemplation, that is, when the end of work is 20 but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity; for there being then no reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, man's employment must of consequence have been matter of delight in the experiment, and not matter of labor for the use. Again, the first acts which 25 man performed in Paradise consisted of the two summary parts of knowledge: the view of creatures, and the imposition of names. As for the knowledge which induced the fall, it was, as was touched before, not the natural knowledge of creatures, but the moral knowledge of good 30 and evil; wherein the supposition was that God's commandments or prohibitions were not the originals of good and evil, but that they had other beginnings, which man aspired to know, to the end to make a total defection from God, and to depend wholly upon himself.

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