THE SECOND BOOK. 95 



than the inventi n f the saiu 



(4) Thus have I passed through natural philosophy and the 

 defences thereof ; wherein if I have differed from theTncient 

 and received doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction 



&quot; Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvge,&quot; 

 the voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do 

 or no. And as Alexander Borgia was wont to sav of thp 

 expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with 

 chalk in their hands to mark up their lodgings, and not with 

 weapons to fight ; so I like better that entry of truth which 

 cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which 

 are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh 

 with pugnacity and contention. 



(5) But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy 

 according to the report of the inquiry, and nothing concerninJ 

 the matter or subject : and that is positive and considerative 

 when the inquiry reporteth either an assertion or a doubt 

 These doubts or non liquets are of two sorts, particular and 

 total lor the first we see a good example thereof in 

 Aristotle s Problems which deserved to have had a better con 

 tinuance ; but so nevertheless as there is one point whereof 

 warning is to be given and taken. The registering of doubts 

 hath two excellent uses : the one, that it saveth philosophy 

 from errors and falsehoods ; when that which is not fully 

 appearing is not collected into assertion, whereby error might 

 draw error, but reserved in doubt ; the other, that the entry 

 of doubts are as so many suckers or sponges to draw use of 

 knowledge ; insomuch as that which if doubts had not preceded 

 a man should never have advised, but passed it over without 

 note, by the suggestion and solicitation of doubts is made to be 

 attended and applied. But both these commodities do scarcely 

 countervail and inconvenience, which will intrude itself if it be 

 not debarred ; which is, that when a doubt is once received 

 men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to 

 solve it, and accordingly bend their wits. Of this we see the 

 familiar example in lawyers and scholars, both which if they 

 have once admitted a doubt, it goeth ever after authorised for 

 a doubt. But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed 

 which laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not 

 those which labour to make certain things doubtful. There 

 fore these calendars of doubts I commend as excellent things 



