wy es 9s a i 
34 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [I1V.7._ 
the oracle of God’s works, and adored the deceiving and 
deformed images which the unequal mirror of their own 
minds, or a few received authors or principles, did re- 
present unto them. And thus much for the second 
disease of learning. 
8. For the third vice or disease of learning, which 
concerneth deceit or untruth, it is of all the rest the 
foulest ; as that which doth destroy the essential form 
of knowledge, which is nothing but a representation of 
truth: for the truth of being and the truth of knowing 
are one, differing no more than the direct beam and the 
beam reflected. ‘This vice therefore brancheth itself into 
two sorts ; delight in-deeeivingand aptness to _be.de-. 
ceived; imposture and credulity; which, although they 
“appear to be of a diverse nature, the Ofie"Séémiing~ to 
proceed of cunning and the other of simplicity, yet 
certainly they do for the most part concur: for, as the 
verse noteth, 
Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est, 
an inquisitive man is a prattler; so upon the like reason 
a credulous man is a deceiver: as we see it in fame, that 
he that will easily believe rumours, will as easily augment 
rumours and add somewhat to them of his own; which 
Tacitus wisely noteth, when he saith, /imgunt simul cre- 
dunique : so great an affinity hath fiction and belief. 
g. This facility of credit and accepting or admitting 
things weakly authorized or warranted, is of two kinds 
according to the subject: for it is either a belief of 
history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact; or else 
of matter of art and opinion. As to the former, we 
see the experience and inconvenience of this error in 
ecclesiastical history; which hath too easily received and 
registered reports and narrations of miracles wrought by 
