14 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



things which are to be accepted of with great limitation and 

 caution ; that the aspiring to overmuch&quot; knowledge was the 

 original temptation and sin whereupon ensued the fall of man ; 

 that knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and, 

 therefore, where it entereth into a man it makes him swell ; 

 Scientia Infiat ; that Solomon gives a censure, &quot;That there is 

 no end of making books, and that much reading is weariness of 

 the flesh;&quot; and again in another place, &quot;That in spacious 

 knowledge there is much contristation, and that he that 

 increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety ; &quot; that Saint Paul 

 gives a caveat, &quot;That we be not spoiled through vain philo 

 sophy ; &quot; that experience demonstrates how learned men have 

 been arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined to 

 Atheism, and how the contemplation of second causes doth 

 derogate from our dependence upon God, who is the first cause. 

 (3) To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this opinion, 

 and the misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may well 

 appear these men do not observe or consider that it was not 

 the pure knowledge of Nature and universality, a knowledge 

 by the light whereof man did give names unto other creatures 

 in Paradise as they were brought before him according unto 

 their proprieties, which gave the occasion to the fall ; but it 

 was the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in 

 man to give law unto himself, and to depend no more upon 

 God s commandments, which was the form of the temptation. 

 Neither is it any quantity of knowledge, how great soever, that 

 can make the mind of man to swell ; for nothing can fill, much 

 less extend the soul of man, but God and the contemplation of 

 God ; and, therefore, Solomon, speaking of the two principal 

 senses of inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that the 

 eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing ; 

 and if there be no fulness, then is the continent greater than 

 the content : so of knowledge itself and the mind of man, 

 whereto the senses are but reporters, he defineth likewise in 

 these words, placed after that calendar or ephemerides which 

 he maketh of the diversities of times and seasons for all actions 

 and purposes, and concludeth thus: &quot;God hath made all 

 things beautiful, or decent, in the true return of their seasons. 

 Also He hath placed the world in man s heart, yet cannot man 

 find out the work which God worketh from the beginning to 



the end &quot; declaring not obscurely that God hath framed the 



mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable of the image of the 

 universal world, and joyful to receive the impression thereof, 

 8,s the eye joyeth to receive light ; and not only delighted in 

 beholding the variety of things and vicissitude of times, but 



