Ta TE ea ee ee 
Ar Sw y ed te : 
XVII. 3.] ‘THE SECOND BOOK. 171 
, 
as may be best examined; and he that receiveth know- 
ledge, desireth rather present satisfaction, than expectant 
inquiry; and so rather not to doubt, than not to err: 
glory making the author not to lay open his weakness, 
and sloth making the disciple not to know his strength. 
4. But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be 
spun on, ought to be delivered and intimated, if it were 
possible, in the same method wherein it was invented: and 
so is it possible of knowledge induced. But in this same 
anticipated and prevented knowledge, no man knoweth 
how he came to the knowledge which he hath obtained. 
But yet nevertheless, secundum majus ef minus, a man may 
revisit and descend unto the foundations of his know- 
ledge and consent; and so transplant it into another, as 
it grew in his own mind. For it is in knowledges as it 
is in plants: if you mean to use the plant, it is no matter 
for the roots ; but if you mean to remove it to grow, then 
it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so the 
delivery of knowledges (as: it is now used) is as of fair 
bodies of trees without the roots ; good for the carpenter, 
but not for the planter. But if you will have sciences 
grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so 
you look well to the taking up of the roots. p¢ metodo 
Of which kind of delivery the method of the sincera, sive 
mathematics, in that subject, hath some 4 jilios 
shadow: but generally I see it neither put ‘%“#” ‘rum. 
in ure nor put in inquisition, and therefore note it for 
deficient. 
5. Another diversity of method there is, which hath 
some affinity with the former, used in some cases by 
the discretion of the ancients, but disgraced since by 
the impostures of many vain persons, who have made it 
as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises; and 
