32 THE ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING 



books. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, 

 which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh 

 according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work 

 upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, 

 and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the 

 fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit. 



(6) This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two 

 sorts : either in the subject itself that they handle, when it is 

 a fruitless speculation or controversy (whereof there are no 

 small number both in divinity and philosophy), or in the 

 manner or method of handling of a knowledge, which amongst 

 them was this upon every particular position or assertion to 

 frame objections, and to those objections, solutions ; which 

 solutions were for the most part not confutations, but dis 

 tinctions : whereas indeed the strength of all sciences is, as 

 the strength of the old man s faggot, in the bond. For the 

 harmony of a science, supporting each part the other, is and 

 ought to be the true and brief confutation and suppression of 

 all the smaller sort of objections. But, on the other side, if 

 you take out every axiom, as the sticks of the faggot, one by 

 one, you may quarrel with them and bend them and break 

 them at your pleasure : so that, as was said of Seneca, Verborum 

 minutiis rerum frangit pondera, so a mail may truly say of the 

 schoolmen, Qucestionum minutiis scientiarum frangunt solidi- 

 tatem. For were it not better for a man in i fair room to set 

 up one great light, or branching candlestick of lights, than to 

 go about with a small watch-candle into every corner ? And 

 such is their method, that rests not so much upon evidence of 

 truth proved by arguments, authorities, similitudes, examples, 

 as upon particular confutations and solutions of every scruple, 

 cavillation, and objection; breeding for the most part one 

 question as fast as it solveth another ; even as in the former 

 resemblance, when you carry the light into one corner, you 

 darken the rest ; so that the fable and fiction of Scylla seemeth 

 to be a lively image of this kind of philosophy or knowledge ; 

 which was transformed into a comely virgin for the upper 

 parts ; but then Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina mon- 

 stris : so the generalities of the schoolmen are for a while good 

 and proportionable ; but then when you descend into their 

 distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb for the 

 use and benefit of man s life, they end in monstrous altercations 

 and barking questions. So as it is not possible but this quality 

 of knowledge must fall under popular contempt, the people 

 being apt to contemn truth upon occasion of controversies and 

 altercations, and to think they are all out of their way which 



