60 Bacon 



rudiments of the senses.) But it must be remembered both 

 in this last point, and so it may likewise be needful in other 

 places, that in probation of the dignity of knowledge or 

 learning, I did in the beginning separate divine testimony 

 from human, which method I have pursued, and so handled 

 them both apart. 



Nevertheless, I do not pretend, and I know it will be 

 impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the 

 judgment, either of Asop s Cock, that preferred the barley 

 corn before the gem; or of Midas, that being chosen judge 

 between Apollo, president of the Muses, and Pan, god of the 

 flocks, judged for plenty: 1 or of Paris, that judged for 

 beauty and love against wisdom and power ; nor of Agrip- 

 pina, Occidat matrem, modo imperet, that preferred empire 

 with conditions never so detestable ; 2 or of Ulysses, Qui 

 vetulam prcztnlit immortalitati* being a figure of those which 

 prefer custom and habit before all excellency ; or of a num 

 ber of the like popular judgments. For these things con 

 tinue as they have been: but so will that also continue 

 whereupon learning hath ever relied, and which faileth not : 

 Justificata est sapientia afiliis suis* 



1 Ov. Met. xi. 153, seq. * Tacit. Annal. xiv. 9. 



3 Cf. Cic. de Orat. i. 44, where it is Ithaca, not his old wife, that 

 Ulysses is said to prefer to immortality. 

 * Matt. xi. 19. 



