Advancement of Learning 221 



The declinations from religion, besides the privative, 

 which is atheism, and the branches thereof, are three; 

 Heresies, Idolatry, and Witchcraft ; heresies, when we serve 

 the true God with a false worship ; idolatry, when we wor 

 ship false gods, supposing them to be true: and witchcraft, 

 when we adore false gods, knowing them to be wicked and 

 false: for so your Majesty doth excellently well observe, 

 that witchcraft is the height of idolatry. And yet we see 

 though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that 

 they are all of a nature, when there is once a receding 

 from the word of God; for so he saith, Quasi peccatum 

 ariolandi est repugnare et quasi scelus idololatrice nolle 

 acquiescere. 1 



These things I have passed over so briefly because I can 

 report no deficience concerning them: for I can find no 

 space or ground that lieth vacant and unsown in the 

 matter of divinity: so diligent have men been, either in 

 sowing of good seed, or in sowing of tares. 



THUS have I made as it were a small globe of the intellectual 

 world, as truly and faithfully as I could discover: with a 

 note and description of those parts which seem to me not 

 constantly occupate, or not well converted by the labour 

 of man. In which, if I have in any point receded from 

 that which is commonly received, it hath been with a 

 purpose of proceeding in melius, and not in aliud ; a mind 

 of amendment and proficience, and not of change and 

 difference. For I could not be true and constant to the 

 argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others ; 

 but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond 

 me again: which may the better appear by this, that I 

 have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not 

 seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men s judgments by 

 confutations. For in anything which is well set down, 

 I am in good hope, that if the first reading move an objection, 

 the second reading will make an answer. And in those 

 things wherein I have erred, I am sure I have not prejudiced 

 the right by litigious arguments; which certainly have 

 1 i Sam. xv. 23. 



