40 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



dissection, those peccant humours (the principal of them) 

 which have not only given impediment to the proficience of 

 learning, but have given also occasion to the traducement 

 thereof : wherein, if I have been too plain, it must be remem 

 bered, fidelia vulnera amantis, sed dolosa oscula malignantis. 

 This I think I have gained, that I ought to be the better 

 believed in that which I shall say pertaining to commendation ; 

 because I have proceeded so freely in that which concerneth 

 censure. And yet I have no purpose to enter into a laudative 

 of learning, or to make a hymn to the Muses (though I am of 

 opinion that it is long since their rites were duly celebrated), 

 but my intent is, without varnish or amplification justly to 

 weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with other 

 things, and to take the true value thereof by testimonies and 

 arguments, divine and human. 



VI. (1) First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge 

 in the archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes 

 and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man and may be 

 observed with sobriety ; wherein we may not seek it by the 

 name of learning, for all learning is knowledge acquired, and 

 all knowledge in God is original, and therefore we must look 

 for it by another name, that of wisdom or sapience, as the 

 Scriptures call it. 



(2) It is so, then, that in the work of the creation we see a 

 double emanation of virtue from God ; the one referring more 

 properly to power, the other to wisdom ; the one expressed in 

 making the subsistence of the matter, and the other in 

 disposing the beauty of the form. This being supposed, it is 

 to be observed that for anything which appeareth in the 

 history of the creation, the confused mass and matter of 

 heaven and earth was made in a moment, and the order and 

 disposition of that chaos or mass was the work of six days ; 

 such a note of difference it pleased God to put upon the works 

 of power, and the works of wisdom ; wherewith concurreth, 

 that in the former it is not set down that God said, &quot;Let 

 there be heaven and earth,&quot; as it is set down of the works 

 following ; but actually, that God made heaven and earth : the 

 one carrying the style of a manufacture, and the other of a law, 

 decree, or counsel. 



(3) To proceed, to that which is next in order from God, to 

 spirits : \we find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial 

 hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, 

 the first place or degree is given to the angels of love, which 

 are termed seraphim ; the second to the angels of light, which 

 are termed cherubim ; and the third, and so following places, 



