re ieee Pan es ye . >> 
Iv. a 4 THE FIRST BOOK, 31 
in a temple, said in disdain, Vil sacrz es; so there is none | 
of Hercules’ followers in learning, that is, the more severe 
and laborious sort of inquirers into truth, but will despise 
those delicacies and affectations, as indeed capable of no 
divineness. And thus much of the first disease or dis- 
temper of learning. * A 
5. The second which followetled is in nature worse than 
the former : for_as_substance of-matter-is. better than a 
beauty of words, so contrariwise vain matter is worse 
than vain words : wherein it seemeth the reprehension of 
Saint Paul was not only proper for those times, but pro- 
phetical for the times following ; and not only respective 
to divinity, but extensive to all knowledge: Devéla pro-|2 
Janas vocum novitates, et oppositiones falst nominis sctentia. 
For he assigneth two marks and badges of suspected 
and falsified science : the one, the novelty and strange- 
ness of terms; the other, the strictness of positions, 
which of necessity doth induce oppositions, and so ques- 
tions and altercations. Surely, like as many substances 
in nature which are solid do putrify and corrupt into 
worms; so it is the property of good and sound know- 
ledge to putrify “and dissolve i “number-ofsubtle, 
idle Se aeinItOne BE Ges nay term them) vermiculate 
questions, w which have indeed a kindof" quickness “and 
life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of © 
quality. “'Phis*kirid-of~degenerate learning "did chiefly 
Teign amongst the schoolmen : :_who having sharp and "4 
“strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety 
of reading;*but their wits being shut up in the cells of a 
few authors (chiefly Aristotle*their~dietator)-as their per- 
sons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and col- 
leges, and knowing little history, either of nature or 
time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite 
